Dreamer
by lilian.wyler
Summary: Mia lives in the 21st century, Earth. Magic shouldn't be possible. Her friends call her crazy for believing in it, unaware that the girl hides her abilities for safety. When a portal forces them into the land of Fiore, Mia learns more about her own magic, discovering that her family hides a dark secret related to Zeref. T for some violent mentions(nothing detailed or described)
1. Summoning:

**Author's Note (SPOILER ALERT): This story is set right after Natsu and Lucy reunite with Gray and Erza - Wendy and Juvia are already teamed up with them, too. Gajeel, Levy and the rest of Fairy Tail is still missing and Lucy never sent any letters anywhere.**

 **Enjoy your reading! :)**

"Mia, wait up!"

"Why? Just hurry up already, look at the line!" Mia turned around to wave at her three friends, who had fallen steps behind her, walking slowly and tiredly. They looked at the rollercoaster line, which seemed to get bigger by the second, and sighed. Mia was the first to reach the end of the line, while waiting for them to accompany her.

"Here I thought she only wanted to see this place. She looks like a child now."

"I just love rollercoaster rides and you know that." Mia defended herself. "Come on, Amanda, don't be so gloomy. It's a beautiful day and everyone's happy in this place, don't you like it?"

"How do you know everyone's happy?" Amanda defied her.

"Because it's written in their faces. Themed parks are a few of the only places on Earth where people forget their nightmares. It's exciting!" _And liberating_ , the girl added to herself, refraining from saying it out loud.

Mia Griffin was a 19-year-old law student from Riverview, a small town in the countryside. She had lived her entire life with her parents, only moving to the big city, Yalestorm, where she now lived, when she was sixteen. From that moment on, her life changed drastically, not only because of the environment difference. People in Yalestorm were rushier, and in Mia's opinion, scarier. Also, in her first week there, she started having weird, heavy dreams who seemed too realistic for her to ignore. After a while, the dreams started to come true.

They changed slightly every night. At first, she dreamed of her dead grandfather – one she barely even knew because he died when she was three years old. He was standing in a rock in the middle of the ocean, slightly wet from the waves crashing against his feet, standing unbalanced. He looked right into Mia's eyes, and told her that she would carry the gift of dreams, and one day, she'd give it to him.

Which made her wake up sweating in the middle of the night from the intensity of the dream. The following night, the same message appeared, only in a written notebook handed to her by her little sister, Sophia. The message kept appearing night after night, coming from different sources. At the end of the week, the girl was already researching the words _gift of dreams_ in every place she could, getting nothing useful out of it.

That is, until she started seeing things about two weeks later.

"Mia! Wake up!"

"Sorry, Alex." Mia apologized, being brought back from her daydreaming state by Amanda's boyfriend, and following them down the line to the roller coaster cart. They adjusted their seatbelts and Mia smiled at Alex's fear.

When they got down from the ride, Mia and Amanda were the only ones still excited.

"Seriously, guys." Amanda said, mocking the two who seemed like they'd seen a ghost. "That was amazing, how can you be so girly?"

Both Mia and Amanda laughed at their disgusted faces.

"We pick the next one. Logan, what do you think?" Alex turned to his best friend. Logan was a quiet guy who happened to be Mia's, Amanda's and Alex's best friend. He wasn't very talkative, but when he did talk, he was always sincere, sometimes a little bit too much. Mia was the source of most of his snaps, but she also considered him one of the few people she could completely trust – although not even to him she'd risk telling her secret. Only one person had ever known and he was now dead.

She shook her head to avoid those kind of thoughts, while watching them look around the park in search of a ride that would probably displease the girls. Seeing nothing that would scare them – they knew Mia was an adrenaline junkie and Amanda wasn't scared of much. Suddenly, Logan smiled.

"Water tornado." He said, looking at a further ride, and seeing the disgust look on Amanda's eyes. Mia lead the way immediately, never being in a bad mood about a themed park, no matter what kind of ride she went on.

They spent the afternoon together, laughing and talking nonsense while having a bit of fun. At some point, they were all exhausted and decided to eat before going home. When they entered Logan's car, they were all sleepy. Logan had to turn on the car radio and put it on a loud volume to keep himself awake. Mia talked to him through the entire way while the couple fell asleep on the back seat.

"I've seen people have fun on theme parks before, but you make it seem like the best place on Earth. It's a simple park we were in." Logan commented at some point of the trip back.

"Well, what can I say? There's a different energy in these places. I feel good." Mia shrugged, and it was true. People there tended to forget their nightmares, their problems.

Logan dropped her off first, her house being closer to the city entrance. She thanked them for the day and quickly worked on the gates and entered the elevator. Once home, she checked for her keys and noticed they were gone.

"Damn it!" She murmured, realizing she had left it on Logan's car. Looking around and seeing nobody – well, the floor had only two apartments, her own and her neighbor, who lived alone, so it was really rare to bump into anyone, she opened her hand. "Summoning: Front door key."

She felt her tiredness increasing as a perfect copy of her house key appeared in her hand, and she used it to open the door and finally get in. Relieved to be home safe – she'd been oddly paranoid about leaving her house lately – she dropped her purse on her bed, while making the key disappear into nothingness.

"Anna, are you home?" She called from the living room, seeing her roommate's bedroom door closed. After a moment, Anna opened it and greeted Mia with a smile and a sleepy face.

"How was the park?" She asked, sitting on the couch and turning on the TV.

"Amazing! Parks are always amazing." Mia answered excitedly, sitting on the other couch and throwing her legs up on the comforter. "How was your day, did you and Lyla make it to that party?"

"Peter's party? Yes, but we didn't stay long. Peter was already drunk when we got there and the alcohol was over, so what would be the point?" Anna asked and they both laughed. "Anyway, Owen called me. He wants me to meet him and spend the night with him tonight."

Mia had to make an effort to hide her worries, smiling happily for her friend in her exterior. She feared what Owen would do to Anna once he decided to leave her – and Mia knew for a fact he would.

"That's great, Anna." She lied, not being able to tell her the truth. Why would she listen, anyway? Mia had no proof or no reasons to say what she knew. Her source of knowledge wasn't a believable one. "So that explains the perfume and make up." She smiled noticing how her friend was dressed. "You're in it to kill, aren't you?"

Anna smiled wickedly and nodded. Just as she was about to say something, the doorbell announced Owen's arrival.

"He wanted to come on in to leave some stuff here, do you mind?" Anna asked while answering the interphone. Mia shook her head, of course she didn't mind. Despite being a player, Owen was a nice guy, and he had some pretty hard memories from his past. She felt sorry and angry for him at the same time.

"Hi? What? Oh, ok. Come on up." Anna said, while looking at Mia and frowning.

"What?" She inquired while unlocking the door – with Anna's key.

"Logan, Alex and Amanda are down there too. They're all coming up, something about some tickets you forgot to return."

Mia slapped her forehead.

"The concert tickets! I completely forgot about them." Cursing, she set to look for the three small tickets in her messy bedroom, finding them just in time to see her friends and Owen entering her house. She hurriedly delivered the tickets, while greeting Owen and apologizing to her friends altogether. "Enjoy your night." She told them all and smiled.

"Are you staying home again?" Anna asked concerned.

Mia nodded and watched them go. She was about to manifest another key – since Anna took hers without locking the door on the way out – when she heard a loud sound of something crashing and screams.

She recognized Amanda's scream – she'd heard it plenty on the park – but this time, it was full of terror. Running outside and to the elevator, Mia's eyes widened in shock as she saw the doors open and the well empty, as if the elevator had never existed.

Looking down further, she noticed how it seemed to be bottomless, which was weird because they were in the second floor, so she should be able to see the elevator well's bottom. Instead, all she saw was dark and some pretty bright dots.

It took her a minute to realize it were stars. She heard the screams again and quickly used her cellphone lantern to illuminate the thing, seeing, horrified, that the elevator hang by a thread, literally, on the starry sky and her friends were all trying to get out of it through the top, but none of them could climb through the greasy cables.

"Mia!" Amanda saw her. "Get help, now!"

Mia quickly called 911 and put the phone on speaker, dropping it near her and looking for a way around it. Unfortunately, none of her friends provided any help, and she cursed them mentally for being so shallow in times like those. Amanda wanted to kiss Alex, Alex wanted his car, Logan wanted his earphones. Anna wanted – Mia blushed when she saw it. And Owen wanted to call Jenna.

"I'm going to look for a rope or ladder here." Mia shouted at them, hoping that her words would make one of them wish for her to find it, but it had no effect. In fact, all of them screamed for her to stay there, and frustrated, she stayed.

She searched her memories but found nothing she could summon that could help.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"My friends, they're…" Mia hesitated: if she told the truth, they'd think it was a prank. "The elevator fell down and is hanging by one cable. We're ten levels from the ground, so if it falls, they'll die. They can't come up by themselves. Please, send some help!"

"Calm down, miss. Please, tell us your name and address."

Mia told them all the information they asked for, and the woman said she'd be sending the fireman there. Mia sat down by the door and looked down again, trying to understand what on earth was that starry sky doing at the end of the elevator well.

"Can any of you see what's down there?" She asked.

"What?" Anna asked, confused, before she understood. "Are you crazy? I'm not looking down!"

"I can see a city." Owen answered and they all looked at him as if he were insane. "Small, but illuminated. It's too far. There's a river, too." He said while looking down. "This is crazy!"

"Crazy?" Alex asked, enhancing the word. "Try impossible!"

"Mia! There's a lever next to the elevator lamp in the inner wall. Can you see it?" Anna said suddenly, and Mia used her light to look for it.

"Yes. It's yellow, why?"

"I just remembered! If you pull it, its supposed to pull the elevator up to the top when it's turned off. Can you do it?"

Mia nodded, dropping her cellphone and grabbing onto the wall to support herself, moving carefully not to fall, and reaching for the lever, but it was too far from her reach.

She reached out further, feeling her muscles complain from the extreme effort, but she finally grabbed it and pulled it, smiling at her own success.

"I did it-" She started to say, when all the lights on the building went off and she heard a cracking noise. Suddenly, something twisted around her wrist and pulled her down. Mia screamed, falling at an insane speed, and realizing the elevator cable had broken and had swirled around her. Quickly, she disengaged her wrist from it, which only served to make her fall freely. She saw her friends a few meters down, screaming.

In a flash, one of them had the salvation wish.

"Summoning: Water Giant Cushion."

"Open, key of the lamb. Aries!"

 **So, how did I do? I hope it's worth reading. Please leave your opinion! :D**


	2. Blur

At the same time that the giant colorful water cushion appeared – Mia had nothing to do with the design, but she was amazed to see it in Amanda's heart – so did a huge pool of a pink fluffy material, which made their crash something painless and even comfortable. They slid to the ground, all too shocked to say a word.

Mia was the first one to stand up. Looking at the pool of pink things, she realized it was wool. Confused, she looked for the voice who spoke along with her and saw a blond girl a few meters from where they were, holding a golden key in her hand and standing next to a pink haired girl with white clothes made of wool. The two girls stared speechless at the group.  
"How…" Owen started to speak. "What…"  
"What just happened?" Logan was the one who managed to ask the full question, looking from the two shock absorbers to the blond girl.  
"Who… Who are you?" The blonde asked, approaching them hesitantly, and the pink haired girl followed close behind. She had a sad look to her eyes that made Mia feel sorry for her, but the feeling was replaced with suspicion when she noticed the girl had no wishes or dreams whatsoever.  
None that she could see, and that was a first. Everyone should have dreams or wishes, even those for whom life held little to no meaning. Be it money, women, men, death, wishes were a part of life. Their existence was as certain as life and death itself. Even the blonde girl there had, so she knew that, wherever they were, dreams and wishes were still a thing.  
Mia blinked when she focused on the blonde girl's dreams, finding them to be too blurry for her to see clearly. In the end, she couldn't tell anything about the girl – and usually, she was amazing at reading people.  
"Where are we?" She asked, adding to her friends questions. The sky had no clouds, it was but a pale blue canvas, where no elevator shaft could be seen. "We fell from the elevator well."  
"Elevator?" The blonde asked. "What elevator? I saw you falling from the sky. You're in Magnolia."  
"Magnolia? Never heard of it." Alex crossed his arms. "How are we even alive?"  
"How did we fall from an elevator and ended up in another city?" Anna inquired.  
"How…"  
"SHUT UP!" The blond stranger's scream startled them. "You fell from the sky, and now you're making me dizzy! Tell me your names and where you came from!"  
They all looked at each other apprehensively. Mia cleared her throat and took a deep breath to start talking.  
"I'm Mia Griffin. These are my friends, Anna, Amanda, Alex, Logan and Owen. We are from Yalestorm and we have no idea of how we came to be here. They entered the elevator on my building to leave for a concert and the thing just fell down, and suddenly it was falling here instead of crashing against the concrete. That's all I know." She shrugged. "But who are you? How did you make that wool thing appear?"  
"What are you saying?" Alex asked Mia. "She didn't _make_ this thing."  
"Well, someone did." Mia shrugged, mentally glad that they hadn't noticed that she made the water cushion appear then. "I just assumed it was one of them."  
"I'm Lucy," the blond girl introduced herself. "I'm a stellar spirit mage. Aries is the one who made the wool appear," she told them, pointing at the pink haired girl, who apologized for no reason. "I was just coming to check if anyone was returning, but then I heard you screaming and falling from the sky. Are you hurt?"  
Mia shook her head.  
"We're fine, thanks to you. Thank you for saving us," She said to both Lucy and Aries, ignoring all the things that didn't make sense in the girl's explanation. "Do you know how do we do to return to Yalestorm?"  
"I've never heard of that city," Lucy told them, much to their surprise. Yalestorm was famous around the entire world thanks to it being the first city to agree to the Purge Project. "Maybe the Council Members will know. Mest is coming tonight with a few friends, so you could ask him."  
"Council members? What council are they members of?" Owen inquired, interested. Owen always loved politics.  
Lucy looked puzzled at his question.  
"The Magic Council, of course." She said, and Mia's face reflected everyone else's surprise.  
"Is this some sort of joke? Maybe they are simulating a version of a Purge Day?" Logan looked around as if searching for cameras. "Hey, guys! That is enough, let us out!"  
Lucy and Aries stared at each other confused now.  
"What are the chances of us falling into another place?" Mia asked Lucy, ignoring her friends. "Like another…" She hesitated, she was sure she'd sound crazy. "World, dimension or something?"  
Lucy's eyes widened as if she had just realized something from Mia's words, which both scared and relieved the girl, who wasn't expecting the blond to actually make sense of her question.  
"Like Edolas!" Lucy said, and they all looked at her. "You might have come from another world, yes. It's highly likely, actually, considering you fell from the sky. That's what happened when we went to Edolas, too."  
"I take it Edolas is an alternate world, then," Mia tried to understand her and she nodded.  
"You're kidding," Alex said, dumbfolded.  
"That's impossible. Guys, that's humanly impossible. There is no magical world, or other worlds at all!" Amanda complained, and Mia saw the fear in her heart: Amanda was heading to a dark place, her energy was starting to emanate anger and terror.  
She was always the skeptic one, so accepting that they were in something that should be impossible and unthinkable should be harder for her than for anyone else.  
Indeed, it was so hard that the girl passed out.  
"Mandy!" Logan called, holding her before she hit the ground and carrying her.  
"It's probably stress from the fall and... and all this," Mia said, knowing it to be the truth. "We have to figure out how to go home, or why we came here in the first place."  
"Is there supposed to be a reason?" Anna inquired.  
"Well, unless you want to believe that the elevator you guys were in fell down here just for fun, yes. Besides, I wasn't even inside it. It only fell after being able to pull me down too," She reasoned.  
"We could try to help," Lucy offered. "In the meantime, I'm sure the guild members won't mind you staying with us. We have a lot of spare rooms currently."  
"Guild members?" Alex asked in a tired voice.  
"I'll explain it over dinner, you look like you could use something to eat. And a place to lay her down," Lucy said, smiling gently and calling them to follow her. They walked a couple of blocks before reaching a huge building, looking like a small castle on the front, with a big banner exposing an unidentified symbol. Mia noticed the same symbol on Lucy's left hand.  
"Welcome to Fairy Tail." The blond girl said before opening the huge wooden doors and revealing what looked like a bar saloon. There was a small girl inside, reading a book, and a white cat by her side. They looked over and smiled at Lucy before noticing the group of strangers.  
"Who are they?" The white cat asked, and Mia thought, for a second, that Owen was going to pass out too, judging by the chalk white color his face acquired.  
"Charle, Wendy, those are guests." Lucy told the two. "Aries, you can go back now." She said and the pink haired girl disappeared. "Virgo, are you here?"  
Another girl with colorful hair, this time purple, and dressed as a maid appeared next to Lucy.  
"Yes, princess?"  
"Could you cook them something, please?" Lucy asked, seeming embarrassed. "I'll get them some drinks. Just take a seat wherever you want, I'll be right back!" She told them before rushing off after Virgo. Mia, seeing the fearful looks on her friends faces, took the first step and sat down at a random table. Soon, they all copied her, looking around wordlessly.  
Seeing Wendy and Charle's curious looks – and trying to guess which of them was named what – Mia explained them the entire story of what happened, covering enough time for Lucy to return with water and Virgo with a full meal prepared. She served them all and disappeared, while Mia finished her story. When she stopped talking, her friends were already eating and Wendy and Charle were staring expressionless at her.  
"Do you think they could have been brought here, Charle?" The young blue haired girl asked the cat. So that made her Wendy. "Like we were taken to Edolas?"  
"Maybe, but for what? She said they don't have magic in their world." Charle reasoned.  
Mia hesitated: should she tell them about herself?  
She thought better of it and stayed quiet. She didn't know if what she could do was magic in the sense they had it, and besides, she couldn't let her friends know like that. They'd fear her or even blame her for the messy situation. She kept her truth to herself, reading into Wendy and Lucy's wishes.  
Or trying to read into them. She couldn't see past the blur that was thick and somehow hurtful. Realizing she was forcing herself, she retreated before getting a headache, wondering if her abilities would only work on people from her world.  
The door opened with a loud sound and a guy entered it running.  
"Natsu, don't break the guild! We just rebuilt it!" A redheaded woman came in behind the guy, who had pink spiked hair and sharp eyes. He wore a black shirt with one long sleeve, the other shoulder was exposed and had the same mark on the banner and Lucy's hand. Mia noticed the mark on Wendy's shoulder too.  
He also wore a white scaled scarf, and Mia stood up, feeling her insides freezing as she recognized him.  
She stood back, terrified, blind to the stares her friends were giving her.  
"Mia?" Alex called.  
"What's wrong?" Charle asked. "Do you feel sick? Maybe Wendy can take a look at you…"  
She couldn't bring herself to talk. She couldn't bring herself to do anything other than look at the pink haired guy with the scarf. She felt her body begin to shiver slightly as he looked back at her, his eyes curious and inquiring.  
"Who are they?" The guy asked Lucy.  
"They came from another world." Charle was the one who answered, serious. "A world without magic, so they're still acting weird because of all the strange things that happened to them."  
"Really? Cool!" The guy clapped his hands excitedly. "Like Edolas, right? But not Edolas, they don't smell like it." He frowned as if he'd been thinking.  
"Aye! They don't look like anyone from here, either. Edolas people are copies of our people." A blue cat appeared behind the guy.  
"N-Natsu." Mia managed to speak, and they all looked at her. "Natsu Dragneel?"

* * *

 **A.N: So, I realized when I posted the chapter I used the main character's old name (Mia), and now I'm sticking to it, but it was a mistake and it was supposed to be Sophia hahaha. Random info, but I felt like writing about it xD.**  
 **That's it for now. I hope you like it and thanks for reading! :)**


	3. Dream

"Natsu Dragneel?"

Natsu, the guy with the pink hair, looked at her suspiciously now, while the red headed woman approached him, and soon a black haired guy entered the place, shirtless and careless, looking at her curiously too, before looking over at Natsu.

"I guess you have a fan," he spoke, but apparently he and the redheaded were in a hurry, because they didn't stick to hear her explanation, leaving the guild and giving a quick _'see you tomorrow'_ to everyone without really looking at them. If Lucy or Wendy found it strange, they didn't act like it, ignoring their actions and focusing only on Natsu and Mia.

"How do you know my name?" Natsu asked. "I thought you weren't from here."

"I-" She hesitated. How the hell could she explain the truth? "I had a dream," she opted for a half-truth, something less crazy than the entire thing. "You were in it. You told me your name and talked to me. It was crazy and confusing, but so real. This scarf…" She looked at his scarf and he immediately held on to it. "You said it's important."

"Igneel gave it to me, so of course it's important," he said as if it should have been obvious. "Why would you dream of me?!"

"I don't know."

"Who are you again?" He asked, and Lucy slapped him.

"Have modes, will you?" She reprehended him.

Natsu approached Mia. The serious and studying glare he directed at her made her nervous and brought back bad memories. She stepped back feeling her heart race from fear.

"Natsu?" Lucy called but he ignored her. "Natsu, stop it. You're scaring her."

Natsu stopped and frowned, seeing that indeed she looked terrified. Her friends looked at her curiously, and she saw in a few of their faces that they were thinking the so famous "weird". Right now, though, she didn't care. She was more worried about the fiery-haired guy staring intensely at her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, still frowning. "It's just… You smell different."

She frowned too, confused.

"I haven't really noticed their smells," Natsu explained to Lucy before she inquired. "Can you feel it Wendy? As a group I smell oil and grease and dust. Individually, they all smell alike, the difference is really small, but hers… I smell power."

Wendy shook her head.

"Your senses are better even than Gajeel's, Natsu-san," she said. "I can't sense everything you do."

"That's because you're young and I spent more time with a dragon," he said smiling at her. "You're going to be stronger than Gajeel."

She blushed.

"Excuse me," Alex called out. "What about Mia smelling power? Actually, what about you smelling us at all? How is that even normal?"

"It's not," Lucy gave him a nervous laughter. "We're just used to Natsu, and his nose never fails," she shrugged. "I don't understand. If you all came from a place without magic, how can you have it?"

"Maybe it's like Edolas, you need a pill to make your body magic work," Charle guessed and it seemed to make sense for the mages. Natsu was still staring at Mia.

"Why are you scared of me?" He asked in a lower voice, while the rest of them discussed theories on why and how she could have magic. She simply shrugged, unsure of how to answer. "I can smell that, too, you know."

"Stop it then," she suggested in a not-so-friendly tone. "It's creepy and kind of perverted," she frowned while considering the situation. "We don't even know each other."

He put his hands behind his neck in a lazy posture.

"That's because you fell from the sky today," he reasoned. "You seem nice, I don't think you're evil," his gaze was sincere now. He then smiled. "Maybe you should come with us tomorrow!"

Lucy shot him a warning look before changing the subject.

"They're all scared and confused. We can figure out everything tomorrow. Let them get some sleep tonight," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

After a moment, he nodded, and Lucy took them to some guest rooms they could share. Mia took the room with Amanda and Anna, while Alex would be sleeping with Owen and Logan.

That night, Mia fell asleep fast, being mentally and physically tired both from the craziness and from the amount of energy she had spent summoning the water cushion thingy. She realized nobody had brought that up.

She dreamed of a red dragon.

 _"_ _You bear the gift of dreams, kid. You can see what's guiding someone's heart. Will you break it, or will you help it?" The dragon asked, then she saw Natsu and Lucy standing near a river, and the dragon suddenly seemed to be catching his breath, before roaring, with all its might, a blow of fire in the two mages direction. As Natsu looked up, the fire hit him._

" _NO!" She screamed._

And she woke up at the sound of her own voice screaming that exact word. Anna and Amanda almost jumped out of their beds, scared, and when they realized it had only been a nightmare, they complained at Mia for being so loud. Rolling back in their beds, the two girls were fast asleep again.

Mia, though, noticed it was already daytime and decided to walk her nightmare off. It had been as intense as all her dreams about the "gift of dreams", but this one had been different. It was always a dragon, or Natsu, or her grandfather or a mermaid delivering the message, but two characters never appeared together at once. For some reason, that disturbed her deeply.

She walked outside the house through the back door and was amazed at how huge the terrain was. There was a fountain further, a statue of a woman that looked a little like Wendy, but with different hairstyle, a pool and some weird wooden dolls.

She sat by the fountain and stared at the water. After what seemed like hours, she heard steps approaching and knew, without looking, by the heavy sound, that it wasn't Lucy or Wendy, so it could only be Natsu. Her friends wouldn't bother going there, they would have just called her, and the other mages hadn't even talked to her yet, so why would they go there?

She looked up to see she was right, and the mage was smiling gently at her. She smiled back, unsure of what to say or do.

"I heard you screaming," he told her, sitting in front of her, laying his back on the fountain rock. "You 'kay?" He asked.

She shrugged.

"There's too much in my mind," she said, looking down at the water again. "What is this place exactly? What's with that mark you all have?" She asked, curious.

"It's the guild's mark," he told her. "Fairy Tail! It's a mage guild where mages join and take jobs and have fun and fight. Lucy's better at explaining this than me, but it's really fun. We became a family, but it disbanded last year and now I'm bringing it back!" He sounded so sure and so proud of himself that Mia smiled. "Since you're a mage too, I'm sure Master would let you join."

She frowned.

"I'm not from here," she pointed out. "Also, we don't know if I'm a mage."

"I know you are. And so what if you're not from here? Mystogun was one of our strongest members and he wasn't from here either. He was the prince of Edolas."

"I'm not staying here," she explained, ignoring the whole Edolas thing, as it made no sense to her and he didn't seem like the best person to explain stuff. He seemed to understand her, though. "I'm going back home as soon as we find out how. Still, thank you. But even if that wasn't the case, I'm not a mage."

He rolled his eyes.

"You are. When you find that out, tell me one thing," he stood up and started to walk back into the house, stopping at the door to look at her. "Promise me you'll fight me, ok?" With that and a smile, he left her and went inside.

Mia went back inside when she heard Anna calling for her. They were all up and working on fixing their breakfasts, while Lucy and Wendy seemed to be studying a strange board in a corner, it was filled with notes and written stuff, along with pictures, names, dates, and a bunch of colored lines connecting everything together. It looked like a Criminal Minds investigation board mixed with Teen Wolf Stiles' color coding system. Mia approached the two mages who smiled at her.

"We've been gathering information on everyone who used to be a part of our guild. Natsu told you about Fairy Tail and that it disbanded, right?" Lucy talked to her and she nodded. "We've been trying to find them and bring them back," she sighed looking at the board. "I guess we should try to find Lisanna, Wendy. Natsu said she took the train three days ago. We could stop at the first town and ask around."

"And do that for every single town after the first?" Charle asked, sounding exhausted by the thought alone. "There are about twenty towns, Lucy."

"How long does it take until the last town?" Mia asked.

"About two days, why?" Wendy inquired.

"Well, if that's the case, why don't you start by the last one and make your way backwards?" She asked. "There's a higher chance to hit the town she's in right now, or the last one she's been in, if you do it from the last up to here."

Wendy and Lucy both seemed to cheer up at the idea.

"Natsu! We're leaving!" Lucy called and Natsu came running with Happy by his side. "We're taking the train to Ecrin," she informed him.

His eyes widened in horror.

"That's a two day ride, Lucy!" He complained. "It's impossible. Let's walk!"

"That's even more impossible, Natsu," Happy said.

"Let's fly there!" The mage tried to suggest and was yet again refused. He sighed in defeat and looked at Wendy pleadingly. She giggled.

"I can use Troia once," she said, smiling. "More than that could be risky," he seemed content enough as he celebrated the whole way to the manor's exit. Once at the door, they looked back. "You know, I'd feel better taking them with us," Wendy told Lucy and Natsu.

"How would we take care of that many people?" Charle asked. "If we need to fight…"

"We're going after Lisanna, not the Avatar guys," Natsu interrupted her. "I say we take them."

"I say we ask them," Lucy said back to him and looked at the group.

Mia didn't even hesitate before agreeing to follow them, which got her an approving smile from Natsu and Wendy. The rest of the group also accepted, seeing that the option of being alone in an unknown world was scarier than following a bunch of mages around.

"Would it be a problem if we go with you?" Mia asked. "I don't want us to be a burden or…"

"What are you talking about?" Natsu interrupted her. "Come on, let's go," he told his friends and started walking, being immediately followed by Wendy and the two cats. Lucy smiled at Mia.

"Don't you want to explore?" She asked, before following Natsu. Mia ran after them, and her friends followed closely behind.

During the train ride, Wendy put her hands around Natsu's head and murmured the word "Troia". Whatever that did, nobody knew, because Natsu seemed normal during the entire trip. They had split into two table seats: one for the mages and one for the strangers, but they were side by side.

"Isn't there a way to figure out who they are?" The redheaded woman, whose name was Erza, asked. "Maybe Crux could tell us, Lucy?"

Lucy shook her head.

"Crux is being tracked by the Avatar's stellar spirit mage's Strax. I can't summon him with a question like this. I don't think it's a good idea to let people know about their story," she looked down. "I can't think of any other spirits…" Her voice died down. "Gemini!"

Suddenly, Lucy stood up and smiled at the group.

"Open, the gate of the twins, Gemini!"

Two little blue flying creatures appeared out of nowhere in front of Lucy, floating next to her and looking cute in Mia's opinion.

"Oh, I see!" Natsu's fist hit his opposite hand. "You'll have Gemini transforming into you to impress them."

"THAT'S NOT IT!" Lucy yelled at him before turning back to the creatures and calming down. "Gemini, these guys came from another world. Could you turn into one of them to see where exactly and maybe tell us what's going on or give us any information at all, please?"

"We could, we could!" One of them said.

"Pick one, Lucy!" The other completed.

Lucy looked at each of them as if waiting for an answer.

"Turn into us?" Amanda asked uncertain.

She nodded.

"Gemini can transform into anyone who's close to us, physically speaking, and who holds equal or less magic power than me. In that case, I think it's easy for them to transform into one of you since you have no magic. When they do, they'll see everything about you. Memories, personality. They won't share with me, I promise!" She quickly added that last information.

Mia felt a cold shiver run down her spine. She was absolutely sure she didn't want anyone finding out everything about her. The twin creatures turned to her and one of them frowned.

"She has it! She has it!" It said, looking at her, and everyone else did, too.

"Can't turn into her! We can't, we can't," the other added, and Mia felt as confused as Lucy looked.

"What… Why not?" She looked at her spirits.

"What… Why not?" She looked at her spirits.

"She's powerful," they said in unison. "They all have magic," they added for the group's surprise. "They can't use it, they don't know it, so they're weak. We can turn into them. But not her."

"W-Wait!" Mia stuttered. "I… I don't have magic either. I mean, not that I know of. I can't use it, I'm weak too!" She said, and her nervousness made her lie sound like the truth. She felt guilty about lying to them after all the help they'd been giving.

Natsu smiled at her.

"I told ya'," he said. "Alright, Lucy, turn them into her." He demanded, smiling wider.

"Didn't he just hear them?" Murmured Anna looking at Natsu as if he were a strange science project.

Lucy sighed and looked at the group.

I'll only do it if you agree," She told them.

"Turn them into me," Logan said coolly. "I don't mind."

That being said, Gemini became a perfect copy of Logan, which was really disturbing in Mia's opinion, but she kept it to herself. The copy frowned, thinking.

"They are from Caedrum. They are Caeders," Gemini said. "It's a land with no magic that was almost infused with this world decades ago. We don't know what happened then, but the infusion was stopped and both worlds were completely separated. It's the first time a Caeder comes here since then," as they spoke, everyone reacted differently: Lucy, Erza and Gray looked more interested in the facts. Natsu looked bored by the minute. Wendy had an odd look, the kind people acquired when seeing famous people. Alex and Amanda seemed to find it hard to accept all that craziness. Anna was looking bluntly at Gray (shirtless) and Owen and Logan both stared open-mouthed at Logan's copy.

"We do not know how to send you back," Gemini added apologetically.

"We weren't really expecting anything, so thank you," Lucy said and they nodded before disappearing. "Well, I guess we didn't get much from it," she sighed and looked outside the window.

Nobody had much to say to her. Apparently Troia's effects worn out, because Natsu became suddenly sick and unable to mutter anything understandable. Wendy, too, seemed a bit bothered by the trip, though not as much as her pink haired friend. Charle spent the rest of it trying to make her more comfortable, and Happy was distracted by his hunger – he started going on and on about fish and how tasty they were. Finally, Gray and Erza seemed more interested in other matters – just like in the day before – and talked to each other in a low voice during the entire ride. Lucy was the only one curious about the Caedar's story, but she seemed like the kind to think to herself rather than sharing her ideas with strangers.

That left Mia's friends. Those wouldn't shut up, but they were more focused on talking about how all that was impossible instead of actually addressing the reality at hand.

At some point, Mia fell asleep, only awaking at the arrival.

* * *

 **N.A: So... How is it going so far? I hope this is worth following for you :) Thank you for reading so far, and until next chapter! xo**


	4. Lisanna

Positioned behind a grove, the township of Ecrin was gorgeous. Lucy told the Caeders that legend said that the township wasn't built by a grove by accident, as it supposedly had a broken, hidden library, which was of great importance to the people of Ecrin and its success. She explained that it was just a legend with no truth to it.

The township itself looks gorgeous. With its cypress wood rooftops, red stone walls and a gorgeous mirror lake, Ecrin had an inviting atmosphere.

The main attraction was the stadium, built 22 years ago and designed by mages from the town's guild, Elemental Circle. Walking by the town's main square, Mia saw a wooden inscription by a woman's statue, and approached to read it.

"Eriphise, Elemental Circle's first master and the founder and protector of Ecrin."

Guilds here are serious stuff, Mia wondered.

"Ecrin has a progressing economy, which is mainly supported by thieving, herbalism and tailoring. But their biggest strengths are rare herbalism and rare wood production," Lucy told the group, while reading all the information from a book. She closed it and looked around. "So, Natsu. Do you smell them?"

Natsu nodded.

"I smell Lisanna and that weird smell that you assume is Mira," he told her and looked around. "Two days old. They came this way," he took a paved path that went downside towards the edge of town and the grove. Anna and Amanda watched enchanted the amount of people passing them by, some of them holding stuff that moved or glowed or made sounds out of nothing. Suddenly, Lucy ran towards a store window and looked inside.

"Hey!" Natsu called out to her before following her. "Lucy, it's that way!"

"Look, Natsu!" She pointed at the shop. "They have Caellum's key here!" She clapped her hands and her eyes glowed in excitement, while Natsu seemed to understand what that was about and feel bored at the same time. "How much do we still have?"

"We're not buying it," he said immediately.

Lucy crossed her arms.

"We spend most of it so you can eat a lot. Eat a little less and we can afford it!" She complained.

"That's not gonna happen. Come on, Lucy, Lisanna's scent is getting stronger. Wendy can feel it too, can't you?" He looked at the little girl, who nodded.

Lucy sighed and, taking one last glance at the shop, followed Natsu. For a second, Mia stopped, feeling dizzy as an image of a golden key flashed in her head, erasing all else. It was like Gemini's key, but the symbol at the top was blue and different. Aquarius.

"Mia?" Anna called out for her and she shook her head, hurrying to follow them, ignoring the image, knowing it was just another wish. The intensity of it was surprising to her, and the fact that it came from Lucy, whose dreams she couldn't see a while ago was interesting, but that was nothing to be really worried about.

They walked for a couple of hours before reaching a glade in the middle of the woodland, where Anna and Amanda threw themselves at the ground and claimed that they'd be waiting there. Mia sighed, rolling her eyes at her friends. She knew they should have stayed in town to look for clues with Erza, Gray, Owen, Alex and Logan.

"How come you're not tired?" Anna inquired. "Even Lucy is!"

"We're really close," Wendy told them, looking at Natsu, who seemed to be trying to figure out which way to go. "It's like she's everywhere."

"How do you mean?" Lucy looked at the small girl.

"She's been fighting," Natsu said, now tense. "I can smell someone else. Lisanna, Mira – you were right, Lucy, but there's a third smell…"

"Guys," Mia called but they seemed lost in thought. She was staring at a point in front of Natsu, and as he walked, he was about to step on what looked like… "Natsu! Freeze!" She yelled and he did so, immediately turning around thinking he was under attack. Seeing nothing, he, and the rest, looked at her inquiringly. She frowned. "You were about to step on her," she pointed at the ground, and Natsu looked down, his face even more confused.

"There's nothing here," he said. "Are you trying to trick me?" He looked at her a little angrier now. "This isn't the time to…"

"I'm not tricking anyone," Mia insisted and hurried to his side, kneeling and testing the girl's pulse. "Can't you see her?" She looked around and saw confusion and worry in everyone's faces. "It's… It's a girl, about your age, Lucy. She's really pale and her hair is short and silver. She's unconscious but her heart's beating normally." As she spoke, she saw recognition in everyone's eyes, but they still looked like they didn't believe her. At that moment, the girl moved.

"Ouch!" The girl opened her eyes and put her hand in her forehead, as if feeling a headache. "It hurts," she complained, looking around dizzily before noticing Mia and the others. "Natsu!" She celebrated, throwing her arms around him. Natsu lost his balance, but recovered quickly, acting as if it had been the wind or something. The girl stepped back and looked at him confused. "Are you ok?" She wondered.

Natsu looked at Mia.

"What are you talking about? There's no one there."

The girl looked at Mia too, now as confused as everyone else.

"Who are you?" She demanded.

Mia sighed. _Great._ She thought. _Now I have to talk to this one or she'll go angry, and if I do talk they'll think I'm speaking to ghosts_.

"My name is Mia. It's a really long story but me and my friends have been following Natsu and Lucy today and yesterday, looking for someone named Lisanna," she explained, seeing the look in Natsu's face as she spoke. Her friends giggled as if it were something expected to happen. Natsu, on the other hand, looked at her as if she were crazy.

"I'm Lisanna," the girl said putting her hands to her hips. "Why can't he see me?" She inquired and Mia shrugged.

"He can smell you here. He says you're everywhere, he also says you've been in a fight…?" She tried to trigger the girls memories, and it worked. Lisanna's hand covered her mouth as she widened her eyes in horror.

"Illusion Magic!" She said, confusing Mia. "The guy who attacked me was after my sister, he'd been chasing her for a while now. We managed to defeat every single one who came after us but this guy was different. His power is strange and unusual. He beat Mira-nee and knocked me out, but before that he said he'd spare me in respect to her, but he'd make sure I'd never tell anyone about what happened. I think… I think he cast an illusion magic around me so nobody sees or hears me," Lisanna's voice was steadier and she stared right into Natsu's eyes. Surprising Mia, the silver haired girl kissed him.

Natsu gasped and tried to move back, but Lisanna held him in place.

She stepped back right after, though, and he seemed even more confused. Lucy and Wendy were now looking at him.

"What's wrong, Natsu?"

"I…" He touched his fingers to his mouth. "I felt something," he said, and then looked at Mia. "Lisanna's here, isn't she? You're seeing her," he wasn't mocking her or even questioning it, but affirming and expecting confirmation. Mia nodded while Lisanna celebrated her success.

She got a sideways glance from the girl who could see her and blushed.

"What? It's not like he wouldn't want me to," she defended herself. "Besides, I always wanted to do that."

"You've always wanted to…" Before Mia could finish her question, Lisanna put her hand in her mouth.

"Let's not tell him, ok?" She half asked half ordered and Mia nodded. Aside from Natsu, who'd figured out that Lisanna was really there, the others seemed as confused as ever. Mia's friends were laughing out loud now. "Why are they laughing?" Lisanna frowned at the two other girls.

"They think I'm going crazy. They always thought that, so never mind," Mia waved it away as if she didn't care. Her friends stopped laughing immediately, looking a little bit surprise. _Honestly, did they really think I had never heard them talking about it?_ She thought to herself.

Lisanna looked at the two girls as if they were the crazy ones, which pleased Mia immensely. She loved her friends, no doubt about it, but that _you're crazy_ look they usually shot her were at least annoying. Besides, it wasn't her fault if suddenly she was able to see more than other people, or do stuff people shouldn't be able to. Of course she'd start believing in the impossible, that didn't make her crazy.

At least now she was sure of it.

"Mirajane has been captured," she told the group and the three mages looked shocked. "Lisanna told that someone's been after her for a while now and while they managed to fight off the previous attackers, this one was different."

She explained the entire story, including Lisanna's theory as to why she wasn't seen. They not only believed in Mia, but seemed to agree that it made total sense. There was only one question lifting in the air.

"Why can you see her?" Natsu asked Mia.

Amanda blinked before realizing what was happening.

"Wait," she called their attention. "You actually believe this crap?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Natsu snapped back.

"Because it's crazy and it's obviously a lie," she insisted. Natsu looked at Mia.

"Are you lying?" He asked simply, to which Mia shook her head in a silent negative answer. He smiled and shrugged as if Amanda was nothing but inconvenient. "So now we follow towards wherever the guy took Mira."

"But…" Amanda tried again. Natsu gave her a half look that made even Mia shiver.

"Isn't she your friend?" He asked in a heated voice. "Stop doubting her and stop complaining. Friends trust each other, that's what makes them stronger."

With that, Natsu took the lead, following Mirajane and her captor's scent. Lisanna followed them, all the way talking to Mia, telling her stories of her latest adventures with her sister and brother, explaining her sister and brother's magic, her own. She was starting to tell Mia about a place called Edolas – Mia remembered Natsu and Happy talking about it – when they reached a really creepy area. The trees were all dead and it was darker there, despite it being in broad daylight. Further down the dead forest there was a house that looked like it was falling to pieces. It was burned and wrecked.

"The smell is stronger here," Wendy said with a scared voice.

"She's there," Natsu said, getting really serious now. He looked at his friends. "Wendy, Happy, come with me. Lucy, Lisanna, Carla, you stay here with them, keep them safe.

"Natsu, take Mia," Lisanna said before realizing she couldn't be heard. Mia hesitated. "He'll know I said it, just say it out loud!" Lisanna demanded, seeing past Mia's fear of being misunderstood.

"Natsu-san," she called, hesitantly. "Lisanna told me to go."

He frowned.

"Then they won't be able to see her or talk to her. Besides, you can't use magic," he said. "It's too dangerous."

"I'm not the one asking it!" She quickly said. "She's saying that if I can see her, I might be able to see through any other illusions," she frowned as she repeated Lisanna's words. She really doubted she could be more than a burden, giving that she wasn't willing to use her abilities in front of them yet, but it did make sense. Natsu considered it before agreeing.

"Take her along then," he said and turned his back on them, walking faster towards the house. Lisanna and Mia remained at his feet, but the girl was terrified while Lisanna seemed worried. When they reached the door, Natsu simply kicked it open.

"MIRA!" He yelled at the dark room, and Mia, Lisanna and Wendy jumped from the echo sound.

For a moment, nothing was heard. Then, a laughter that made every single nerve in Mia's body jump reached them, coming from the staircase in front of them. From the dim light, Mia saw a shadow, then realized it was a man coming down the stairs.

From the look in Lisanna's eyes, that was the man who attacked her. Mia looked at Natsu and Wendy and the two of them were looking around looking for the origin of the laughter. The guy laughed once again and Mia pretended to be looking around as well.

He stopped at the room, a few feet away from Natsu.

"I knew you'd find a way to lead your friends here, stupid girl," he said to Lisanna, looking at her over Natsu's shoulders. "I can't believe you fell for that _I'm going to let you live_ crap. Now I can kill you _and_ the dragon slayer."

"Give my sister back!" Lisanna demanded, launching at the man, who moved his left hand and the girl fell down to her knees, suddenly screaming. He looked at her, struggling on the floor as if fighting something, and laughed even louder.

Suddenly, the screams were different. Less like a whisper in Mia's ears and more like the sound she usually heard. She understood that the guy had lifted part of the illusion, allowing Natsu and Wendy to hear it too.

"Lisanna!" Natsu shouted her name, looking around desperate. Wendy covered her ears.

* * *

 **A.N: So, now the story's finally going somewhere. Sorry about it taking 4 chapters to actually introduce a sort of arc/enemy. Also, unlike in FT, I thought about bringing the members back slowly. The Strauss Siblings were always a favorite of mine and as much as I'm a NaLu fan, I always thought Lisanna deserved some spotlight, so be aware that she'll be having some major role here (more as a friend than a fighter, but still.)**

 **Anyway, enough babbling from me and thank you all again for reading this story :)**


	5. 5 - Omni Dreamer

When the man moved to touch Natsu, Mia reacted.

"Natsu, he's in front of you! Attack, now!" She said in a loud voice, and was surprised by a flaming flash before the man was thrown backwards all the way to the top of the staircase. Natsu's hands were embedded in flames that flickered and danced around his skin, seeming not to harm him at all. The man stood up.

"Where now?" The fire mage looked at Mia.

"He's coming from the staircase." She said. The man, noticing her, joined his hands together and a tiger jumped out of nowhere towards Natsu, who yelped and tried to fight it off. "It's another illusion!" Mia warned him. The tiger had a dark glow around it just like Lisanna had. That was his mark, she realized. "Ignore it and aim forward. He's trapped between you and the stairs, his only way is up or down."

"Happy! Take Wendy and look for Mira!" Natsu ordered while launching at the man, now his feet on fire too.

"Aye, Sir!" Happy obliged, growing wings from his back, which Mia thought was amazing, and grabbing Wendy. They flew past the man and towards the second floor. In the meantime, Lisanna was still screaming. Mia kneeled besides the girl and tried to hold her down and bring her back.

"Lisanna!" She called, looking up in time to see the man manifesting a small wolf to go after Happy. "Natsu, left!"

Natsu turned and hit the man again, this time sending him downstairs. He looked angrily at Mia and changed his aim.

"Omni Dreamer" He chanted, and she was hit by a powerful wave that knocked her back. She heard Natsu call her name but he was hit by the man and thrown backwards as well. She tried to stand up, looking around in the dark to find herself, and another laughter, as evil as the man fighting Natsu, but otherwise completely different and familiar to her, was heard.

When she saw who it was, her first instinct was to run away screaming.

Her second was to look around.

That man was dead. He was supposed to be dead, anyway. His son was alive, of course, so she still had part of that nightmare walking around, but with his son she could deal. With him, not so much. Still, she could handle dead people.

She recalled Lisanna screaming in terror at nothing and understood what that was.

At that moment, she was back in the house, and just in time to see Natsu being thrown away and crashing against a wooden table, breaking it. He stood up and tried to launch at nothing, but without being able to see, and with his sense of smell being tricked by the man, he was at a disadvantage.

"Natsu!" They heard Wendy as she arrived at the top of the staircase, being followed by Happy carrying an unconscious silver haired girl. She was taller and older than Lisanna, and her hair, unlike her younger sister's was long and curly, but her traces resembled the other girl a lot. Wendy got down and approached Natsu, a weak light suddenly coming off her hands.

As his wounds closed, Mia realized, in awe, that Wendy was curing him. At that time, the Illusionist approached the little girl from behind.

"Wendy! Behind you!" Mia warned, but it was too late, and as the man looked at her in surprise, probably expecting her to be out, Natsu moved and hit him again with fiery wrists.

"Who the hell are you?" The man asked as he stood up, approaching Mia. The girl took a step back as he took one forward. "Nobody has ever resisted my Omni Dreamer magic."

"Natsu, Wendy, I think he's approaching her." Happy said from some place distant. Natsu cursed.

"Sky Dragon's Roar!" Wendy suddenly shouted, her eyes closed and her entire body shaking, and a blast of air was blown at Mia's direction. She managed to jump away, but the man was caught and thrown against the house's wall and across it, breaking it down. His magic was lifted and Lisanna was suddenly seen, along with whatever illusion she had being gone. She stood up breathing fast while Happy flew to her with her sister, happy to finally see her.

"Nice one, Wendy!" Natsu said, launching at the Illusionist. "Fire Dragon's Roar!" He blasted a roar of fire at the man, who, already almost unconscious, was knocked down.

The entire dead forest disappeared, giving place to a beautifully live one, taking the house away too. The group looked around in confusion and awe.

"Mira-nee!" Lisanna's shout woke them up and they hurried to where she was. Mirajane was laying on the ground, looking peacefully asleep if it weren't for a weird cut in her throat. Wendy immediately put her hands above it and started murmuring something. The air around them was suddenly lighter as the girl cured Mirajane.

A few minutes longer, and Wendy collapsed.

"Wendy!" Natsu caught her before she fell to the ground, holding her in his arms while waiting for Mirajane, who was starting to wake up. She did, eventually, opening her eyes and looking at the forest a little dizzily before noticing her sister.

"Lisanna?" She asked, sitting up. "Natsu! You're here, too. What…" She frowned. "I don't remember anything."

"You were attacked and brought here, Mira-nee!" Lisanna told her, hugging her and crying. Mirajane hugged her back, and Mia saw a glint of sadness in her eyes. Somehow the girl suspected Mira was simply hiding the truth. Still, since she wasn't being honest with any of them, she decided not to pry and shielded her power to see through their hearts, a trick she only learned recently but which was pretty useful sometimes. "I was so worried. They saved us." She looked at Natsu, Wendy, Happy and, to Mia's surprise, herself.

"Ora ora…" Mirajane smiled gently at Mia. "A new friend?" She inquired.

Mia wanted to run and hide now.

"She could see through that guy's magic." Natsu said, standing up with Wendy on his back. He offered Mira a hand and she gladly took it. "Lucy and Carla are waiting, come on."

Mira and Lisanna followed him to the part of the forest where the rest of the group was. When they arrived, Natsu shook his head at the questions from Lucy, Carla and even Amanda and Anna, and kept walking until they reached the city. Once there, they headed straight to the hostel Erza and Gray had arranged for them.

"One room?" Amanda inquired as they got to the room.

"There are too many of us, we can't afford anything fancier." Erza said, coming from a corner and helping Natsu gently set Wendy on one of the beds. The redheaded looked at the sisters. "I'm glad you're both ok, Mira, Lisanna."

"What took you guys so long? Are you losing your touch, Natsu?" Gray teased from the far corner.

Natsu and Mirajane quickly told them about the occurred, with Mirajane filling the blanks on what had lead her to be captured in the first place, explaining that whoever her captors were, they claimed that they needed a demon to complete the Eternity Project.

"People surely have lots of evil projects going on." Carla commented, looking down at her friend. "I wonder what Wendy saw."

Mia looked down. That she had seen, too.

"This guy…" Lisanna spoke. "His magic is different. We've dealt with illusion magic before, plenty of times actually, but his were scarier, more realistic." She shivered as she spoke and Mirajane gently hugged her. "I don't like it. Why would they want Mira-nee?"

"They also said I'm one of the seven needed." Mirajane spoke. "This means there are six other types of mages out there being hunted. Apparently I was the first one taken."

"They will be coming after you again, then." Erza said. "When they do, we'll ask. In the meantime, what do you say we reassemble the guild?"

Both sisters seemed surprised to hear that

"We've been gathering the members back. We already have the guild up and we're living there. Juvia is trying to recruit Gajeel while we go after the rest of the members. Levy is trying to locate Jet and Droy because they ran away when she decided to rejoin." Gray told them. "Natsu and Lucy have a board with information on almost everyone."

"It's Lucy's board." Natsu quickly said, and the blond mage looked down shyly. "Anyway, we're Fairy Tail, right? We can't be over!"

"Agreed." Lisanna said and he smiled. "Mira-nee and I were just waiting for someone to reassemble it. We're in, right?" She looked at her sister and the older one smiled, agreeing. After that, they set on a conversation about politics and jobs, from which Mia tuned out, turning to her friends instead, knowing that they were feeling lost and scared.

"How was your day?" She asked Owen, sitting next to him on a further bed. "What did you guys do?"

"We explored the city. It's not that big, but Alex decided to go on a hunt for the hidden library your mage friend told us about. We found nothing." He laughed. "But we saw some pretty girls and they were even nice to us, giving us advice and information. They gave us a full city tour."

"Whereas we stayed on a forest waiting while she had all the fun." Anna said in a grumpy mood, pointing at Mia, who smiled unapologetically. "You could at least pretend that you're sorry."

"Not really. You were laughing at me and Amanda even called me a liar." She narrowed her eyes. "Suits you well to be left behind. Besides, you wouldn't go in the house even if you had followed us all the way. I only went there because I could see the guy."

"How could you see the guy, by the way?" Logan inquired.

"I have no idea, but I like it." She said, smiling cheerfully. "They did say we all have magic undiscovered." She shrugged.

"So what, yours is to see what other people can't? They said you're powerful, it doesn't sound like a powerful magic to me." Alex pointed out.

"I don't know what I can do. None of us know what we can do." She shrugged.

Amanda yawned.

"I'm tired, we walked a lot today. I'm off to sleep." She said, rolling on the bed and covering herself. While the mages had been talking, the group had already showered and eaten. Mia left them all to sleep, and noticed that the Fairy Tail wizards were doing the same, so she decided to go down the street to see the movement. She was too agitated to sleep.

* * *

 **Flashback**

 _The car honks and the hurried life people lead there was too overwhelming for her. The young teenager made her way through the crowds, trying to find a place where she could get information on what bus she could take home. She wondered, for countless times, what could she had possibly been thinking when she decided to take up on her father's offer to move into the big city, live with her uncle. It sounded like an amazing idea when she was safe at her home. Now, alone in a place where she couldn't recognize one friendly face, she started to think otherwise._

 _The running and talking wasn't the scariest. No, what scared her the most was what she saw between people's words and steps. A really big house; a dead man; a little dog; a huge family gathering together… She felt dizzy from the overwhelming amount of images. Closing her eyes, she slowly steadied her breathing, knowing that it was the only way to turn down the images. She couldn't shut them off, but by slowing it down she allowed her head to process what she saw._

 _Slowly, she was able to tell that the man reading the news at the nearest coffee wanted to see his little daughter, but the dream had a sad feeling to it, and somehow she knew he wouldn't be able to fulfill it. The woman talking on her phone by the shoe shop wanted his husband to give her a flower bouquet – despite the fact that she was asking him in a really loud voice to buy her the new seasonal boots._

 _Mia ran, as fast as she could, to the only place where she felt safe: the gymnastics gym. She had found out it had been abandoned over a year ago, and since then, she'd been going there to train. She loved gymnastics, it had always been a passion._

 _That day, while she had been doing some routines in the uneven bars, a man walked into the gym and clapped his hands. She stopped immediately, feeling scared and a tired from the physical effort and the fact that she had just been caught by a stranger._

 _"_ _I'm impressed, miss. It's been a really long time since I've seen such raw talent." The man spoke. "My name is Ashton Hayes, and I'm the coach in the local gymnastics team. Why don't you come on by?" He offered, giving her his card and leaving her. The guy with him – who was probably four years older than her at most – shot her a gentle smile before following him, and somehow she felt like she knew him._

 _She saw her mother in his dreams._

 **Flashback off**

* * *

Nightlife in Ecrin seemed to be agitated, Mia pondered, as she watched girls and guys passing her by, laughing and seemingly going to a certain destination. She thought of her old life, when she used to spend hours getting ready for some fun with her friends, how they'd go hit the clubs or hang in local bars, make knew acquaintances. She missed with her whole heart. She missed _him_ , too, and she missed the part of herself that died on the same night that he did.

"Oi." She jumped when she was brought back from her daydreaming state by a sleepy Natsu, who sat down by her side. "Why are you sitting on the sidewalk in the middle of the night?"

"I can't sleep." She answered, looking away from him. She wondered what her parents might be doing - if they had even realized she was gone - and how was the gymnastics team taking her absence. She also tried to understand what was it that made her so happy with the idea of never going back. "What about you?"

"I'm hungry." He complained and she laughed. "I can't sleep if I'm hungry."

"There's a small bar down that street." She pointed him the direction. "I think Lucy left some money on the table. Would she be mad at you?"

He shrugged, standing up.

"Lucy's noisy. She's always mad at me." He said, with a grin, offering her a hand. She looked at him in confusion. "What? Aren't you hungry?"

She stood up on her own, which seemed to catch his attention, but he said nothing about it. Instead, he hurried inside, grabbed the money and guided her towards the bar she said she'd seen. Indeed, it was a nice, neat place, filled with people laughing and talking. Someone was singing in the background and the sound of it was really good – though it didn't compare to the music Mia used to hear. At least that was better in her world.

They managed to find themselves a table and Natsu ordered, while Mia dismissed anything, claimed to be not hungry. He eyed her suspiciously.

"You haven't eaten since we started walking." He said. "Lucy and your friends ate while waiting for us. Mira and Lisanna ate at the hostel. How come you're not hungry?"

She shrugged.

"I'm fine." She said, looking around. "Lucy and Lisanna both said you're not really one to sit down and talk to. That you're more into fighting and making a mess out of things." She pointed out, trying to understand him. He looked really interested.

"Well, none of them would want to fight me. Lucy's Lucy and Lisanna is… Weird to pick a fight with. Erza and Gray are asleep. I suppose I'd have fun fighting Mira, but it wouldn't be the same as fighting Erza, Gray, Laxus or Gajeel. Or an enemy." He sounded bothered by that. "Since I can't fight, I want to eat." He simplified, eating his meal.

She went back to her daydreaming state, observing her surroundings. She noticed a couple having an argument at a corner, and a group of friends laughing at some joke. At a farther corner, there was a larger group and everyone had tattoos on their arms: a golden crown and an arrow crossing it. Mia tried to remember where she'd seen it before and the memory quickly came: it was the town's guild symbol.

She watched them closely, seeing how they seemed to get along, talk about stuff, make some magic tricks with water, ice and air, then laugh whatever it was off.

"Fairy Tail was noisier." Natsu muttered, watching them too. Mia looked at him. "We used to sit at the guild hall for hours. I still don't get how people were just ok with it disbanding." He got angrier as he spoke.

"What happened?" She asked, finally feeling like she had an opportunity to understand their story. They were talking about the disbanding all the time yet nobody said a thing that made sense. "Why did you disband?"

He seemed to think for a while before he spoke.

He told her a really long and entertaining story, about fights and loss, about dragons and other stuff she had a hard time understanding, but the whole picture was understandable enough. He seemed to feel pain while telling the end, about Igneel, the dragon who had raised him and appeared after a long time gone missing, just to die in front of him. Mia felt a weird pain in her chest and for a moment, she saw the red dragon from her dreams. He was there, standing tall and imposing, wings moving as if to start flying. His eyes, despite his scary look, were gentle.

Mia felt a desire to see that dragon that she knew she didn't have. She gasped at the intensity of the feeling, and at the fact that she'd seen that dragon before: it was the dragon from her dreams. Also, apparently the fog she'd become used to see in every single mage's dreams was gone just for that second, when the dream was too strong for her to even block it. She had learned to stay away from people's hearts, but sometimes, when their desires were too intense, she'd catch a glimpse despite the barrier she'd raised to block them. In this specific case, not only the desire to see the dragon overcame her barrier, it overcame the fog that kept her from seeing his heart.

"Natsu…" She whispered, not knowing what to say. She gave up, knowing she couldn't tell him a half story about his dragon without knowing for sure she was really seeing it. "I'm sorry." She said instead. "It's amazing that you guys survived, though."

He laughed, suddenly revived of his good spirits.

"That's because we're Fairy Tail!" He said in a loud voice, attracting the attention of the members of Elemental Circle, who whispered among themselves before standing up and walking over to their table. Mia moved closer to the wall, feeling trapped.

"Did you just say you're from Fairy Tail?" A girl asked. She reminded Mia of what a vampire should look like, with round eyes the color of ivory, straight beige hair worn in a style that reminded her of a helmet, pale skin. Her smile made Mia shiver.

"I did, yes, why?" Natsu asked in a defiant posture and tone. Mia started to wonder if it had been a bad idea to bring him out to eat.

The girl laughed out loud.

"That's just a stupid overrated guild." She told him, and Mia saw sparks come off his hands as he closed them into fists. She attempted to kick him under the table but missed, locking her foot in a nail as it entered her skin. She whimpered in pain, and tried to pull it back, but the nail moved inside her skin, cutting it open. She stilled, trying to understand how she'd done it and how to pull herself out without wrecking her foot in the process. Apparently the nail was curved, which was why she couldn't just move away from it. She'd have to get under the table but her position didn't allow it either. While she thought about it, something happened between Natsu and the girl, because he stood up looking really angry, and the girl's companion took her side, looking as threatening as Natsu was.

"Natsu." She tried to call him. "Please don't destroy the place." She half begged, thinking about Lucy's warnings. Yep, it had been a terrible idea, and now she was hurt on top of everything.

He looked down at her and seemed to feel something, because his expression changed to one of worry. Approaching her, ignoring the guild behind him, he bent down and grabbed the table's sides, suddenly yanking it away from its feet.

"Hey!" The waitress came running to yell at him, but his action allowed her to see her foot and carefully release it. She was indeed bleeding and it hurt, but she could live with that.

"Thanks." She said, clumsily standing up and walking out of her seat. The guild who'd been facing off with him looked down at her, and the vampire girl noticed the blood.

"Hey, you're hurt." She said, then looked up at Natsu. "How did you know?" She asked curiously.

"I could smell the blood." He said simply, looking at Mia. "Can you walk?"

She nodded. He then looked at Elemental Circle and smiled, but this time the smile was friendly.

"I like you." He said, surprising Mia. "You look strong and good. Let's fight someday." With that, he left the bar, leaving a group of astonished mages behind. Mia followed him walking a little slower than she used to, trying to put little to none weight on her foot. He didn't seem to mind walking in her pace, though.

"You broke the table." Mia commented, and he laughed.

"I wanted to burn the place down." He shrugged and she laughed too. "You know, how did you see past that guy's illusions?" He asked casually. "Wendy and Lisanna seemed pretty out of themselves."

"I don't know." She said and she meant it. "I had a dream last night…" She hesitated, trying to find a way to tell them a little about what she could do. She was terrified to let anybody in. "A… Someone was there, and he told me that I bear the gift of dreams. That I can use it to destroy or to help people. Something like that." She frowned, having a hard time repeating the words in order to make them make sense. "But I don't know what it means or anything, maybe I can see past illusions because they're somehow dreams and nightmares turned into something you see with your eyes open?"

"You talk too much." Natsu said and she stopped talking. He smiled. "Lucy does, too. You're weird like her." Mia frowned. Somehow it didn't feel like a bad thing. "You're also nice." He added, walking up the staircase before stopping and seeing that it was being a challenge for her. He went back and supported her, helping her upstairs as if it was no effort at all. "I don't know about any of this, but you said you dreamed about me before you met me, too, right? So it might be related. Erza and Lucy are good at figuring these stuff out, you should talk to them." Saying that, he helped her to bed. "Does it hurt?"

She shook her head and stood up, walking over to the bathroom.

"I'll just wash it and go to sleep. Good night." She whispered in order not to wake them all up. By the time she left the bathroom, Natsu was already asleep. It didn't take her long to black out either, and she was glad it came fast.


	6. 6 - Levels

The next morning was hard to wake up. Mia felt the pain from the previous day in her body, and was reminded that she had been thrown backwards by the creepy mage and as low a hit as it was, her body wasn't used to that kind of action. Also, her injured foot hurt a lot more and she noticed it was infected. Great, she thought, getting up and wearing her shoes – why did she have to wear flip flops to university again? She should have stuck with the usual Oxford or Ballerina Flats. Sighing as the flip flop sole hit the wound and made it hurt, she walked downstairs where everyone was already eating. Natsu had finished and was just arguing with Lisanna, while Lucy and Wendy laughed. Mirajane seemed interested in a conversation with Anna and Owen, which worried Mia, but she said nothing.

Natsu and Happy noticed her first, and both smiled at her.

"Mia! They have fish here! Do you want some?" Happy offered her, and she politely refused, smiling at him.

"How's your foot?" Natsu asked, noticing she was still walking funny. Wendy looked up at them.

"Did you hurt yourself?" She asked and saw Mia's foot. "When did you get cut?" She asked worriedly.

"It's fine. I was clumsy." She waved it away and sat down, grabbing a grapefruit to eat. Wendy didn't let it go, though, and was soon sitting by Mia's side. The little girl smiled and put both hands in the air, closing her eyes.

There was a warm rush and she felt her wound actually closing. When Wendy said she was done, there wasn't even a trace of the cut left, and the pain was all gone, too. Mia stared at it amazed.

"Thank you, Wendy." She said, smiling at the blue haired girl.

"It's the least I could do to pay you back for saving us!" Wendy smiled gently.

"They keep saying you saved them, you know." Amanda said in a bored voice. "They seem to really like you."

Mia looked down timidly and smiled. She heard Natsu laugh and pick up the subject they were talking about before she arrived. That got Lisanna back into the argument and he growled realizing what he'd done. Mia watched them and giggled.

Erza and Gray walked into the room with Lucy and everyone made silence.

"We're returning to Magnolia in about half an hour." Erza said. "So get ready so we can get to the station. Gray and Lucy are going to the neighbor town to handle a quick job that Minerva just sent me. It's a good payroll and we need it. The rest of us are heading straight back to the guild to regroup and rethink of how to gather the rest of the members."

"Why is he going for a job and not me?" Natsu questioned looking furiously at Gray.

"Got something to say about it, squinty eyes?"

"Yes, I do!" Suddenly he was in flames and he and Gray had a really tense confrontation, but Erza broke in the middle and pushed them both away from each other.

"SHUT UP AND GO GET YOUR STUFF!" She ordered and they both stood still.

"Yes, sir!" They said and left, each one to a different side, almost marching as if they were soldiers. The watchers laughed at the scene.

"Mira, would you help me pack?" Erza asked, and Mirajane immediately agreed. "Wendy, take the Caeders to the station already, that way you can take a look around town with them. Lucy's going with you to answer their questions." The two girls immediately stood up and called for Mia's group, who, seeing how everyone obeyed Erza, did the same thing. Mia waited for Lisanna, who looked at her curiously.

"Can we talk?" She asked the silver haired girl and she smiled gently, telling the redheaded they'd be walking to the station too. As Erza didn't oppose, the two girls made their own way, avoiding the larger group.

"How are you feeling?" Lisanna asked. "Erza explained to us what happened to you and your friends, how you're not from here and how previous to this you didn't even believe in magic. It must be scary."

"It's confusing, and although I'm with people I care about, I still feel sort of…"

"Lonely?" Lisanna surprised her, and for a second she saw a different image of Mirajane and Elfman un-blurring from Lisanna's heart – at which Mia had been trying to look for a while now, trying to figure out why she couldn't see the mages' hearts at her will. Even Natsu's was blurry again. She widened her eyes. "Well, you see, I was once in another world, too." She surprised the Caeder by saying. "Years ago, I went on a job with Mira-nee and Elf-nii-chan, and I got really hurt. I was taken to this other world, Edolas, where there are exact copies of ourselves from here. Their Lisanna had died and when I showed up, they were so happy. There was a Mira-nee and an Elf-nii-chan there, too. I couldn't break their hearts by leaving, so for two years, I stayed, and this Mira-nee believed I was dead. Natsu, Erza, everyone here thought I died. Until they were taken there and, long story short, brought me back accidentally." She looked up and her eyes were lost. "I know what it feels like. Maybe it's not the same because I knew about magic and I knew the people from both words, sort of. But I know a little bit of it, so if you ever need to talk, I'll listen." She gave a gentle smile and Mia smiled back, still seeing the girl's wishes.

"Well, actually, there's something I think someone should know." She said, as they sat down on a bench at the train station's entrance. Lisanna waited for her to continue. "I've seen Natsu before."

"What do you mean?"

"I knew magic existed." Mia sighed, trying to sort out her words. "I've been able to use it for a while now, on my world, but since it's not supposed to exist, nobody knows. They already think I'm weird and somewhat crazy because I always had my head in the clouds and stuff like movies and books about magic always fascinated me. How wouldn't it, since I was living proof that they could be real? Here, we found out that it is, but since I don't really know what exactly I can do, I didn't tell the others. I do have a slight idea, though."

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to." Lisanna quickly assured her.

"Maybe I do because there's something you should know." She interrupted Lisanna before she was convinced to keep quiet about herself. "I can see people's wishes. I can mold them into reality."

"How do you mean?"

"My roommate is always forgetting her keys. Once, she had to get in to change because this guy she has a crush on was waiting for her, but her keys weren't with her. Her desire to get them so she could get inside our house was so strong that it topped the rest of her wishes. When that happens, if I'm near the person and I mold it right away, then I can do it again. Summoning magic: key." She opened her hand and her house key appeared. "Works with animals too. I can't summon humans, so I can't bring dead people back, but I can do animals, objects and creatures. Still, it's pretty full of rules."

"Someone must have wished for it first." Lisanna guessed. "But if you're in a crowded place, it's like having a full arsenal at your disposal, isn't it?"

"Not exactly. I can't summon all dreams and wishes. I can't even see them. According to the people who taught me about it, what I can see are the three zones of the heart, or rather, the three levels: Present, Future and Past, or Bronze, Silver and Golden."

"Sounds a little like Lucy's keys. How does it work? And who taught you about it? I thought nobody knew."

"I learned it in my dreams." She said, aware of how crazy it all sounded. "Every night, someone different would appear and tell me that _I bear the gift of dreams_. My grandfather, my little sister. After a few weeks, Natsu appeared, and he added something to it. He told me about the Three Levels and how they worked, which, now that I've met the real Natsu, sounds even more insane because I can't picture this guy teaching me the theories and rules of anything." Lisanna laughed at that. "Then, a white dragon appeared. Its voice sounded like that of a female, and she taught me that I could turn a few wishes into reality. Finally, a red dragon, who now I know is Igneel, appeared and taught me a little bit more. He said he'd see me again someday, but after that the dreams were gone for good." _Or until I arrived here_ , she mentally added.

"You dreamed of Natsu's dragon?" Lisanna hugged her knees, interested. "A white female dragon sounds like Wendy's."

Mia nodded.

"I'm not doubting anything at this point."

"So… What can you see of my dreams?" Lisanna asked cheerfully. Mia laughed.

"I can't." She admitted and the girl looked confused.

"But you just said that…"

"I can't see any of your dreams." She explained. "Not yours, your sister's or any dream of any mage in this… world." She had a hard time using the word, despite it being a fact she had already accepted. "I saw Natsu last night, when it was too intense, and for a moment it wasn't blurry, but it's back into its old blur."

"Blur?"

"Think of what I can do as watching small homemade movies." She explained. "I see the dream moving, I see it unveiling, just like a movie. However, here, it's like the movies are too wrecked and I can't see a thing. They're too blurry."

"I think I get the idea." Lisanna assured her. "What about the rest?"

"There's not much else to tell. Everything I left out are rules and what I can and cannot do, but it's too theoretically and complicated." She shrugged.

"Well, I bet we can figure it out while you're here." Lisanna's voice acquired a determination that made the new girl a little worried, but at the same time happy. "When we figure out how to un-blur the dreams of everyone in the guild, you have to promise me to tell me all of them!" She demanded, and Mia laughed.

The two girls talked about random things after that, with Lisanna telling stories about her adventures in Edolas – and as she stopped, thinking she was talking too much, the girl asked her to keep on going, because it was really interesting. After that she told Happy's birth story, how she and Natsu hatched the egg and raised the exceed together, and how they were engaged – in Lisanna's mind at least.

"Here they are!" Alex voice shut them up. "We've been looking for the two of you!"

"We told Erza we'd be here." Lisanna said as if it should have been an obvious place to look first. "You're late, how many tours did you take on this small city?"

"What…" Alex frowned, while Logan laughed behind him. "Hey! Don't act all smart around me!"

"Well, you did freak out for no reason." Logan aided Lisanna, who stood up and walked on the opposite direction, from where Natsu, Gray, Erza and Mira were arriving. Happy and Carla came with Lucy, Wendy and the others.

"Ok, use Troia, Wendy!" Natsu demanded.

"Natsu-san, I already used it on our way here. I can't use it too much." Wendy timidly told him and he froze.

"Lucy, we're walking." He declared.

"We're not." She said not even bothering to raise her voice.

They boarded the train and talked halfway through the day. Natsu was sick during the entire time

"If only we had those pills you take here." Anna commented to Mia, who nodded. "It could help."

"Can't you wish it into being?" Natsu asked, suddenly feeling happy, but the group shot him a _weirdo_ look. Mia frowned at his suggestion, and truly looked around everybody's wishes, but none of her friends needed that kind of medicine but the mage herself, and he wouldn't wish for something he didn't know existed. She could use the pills, too, admitting only to herself that those transportation trips made her really sick, but she couldn't turn her wishes into reality – another rule.

 _"_ _Not you again." She cried, looking at the huge red dragon flying high in the sky. "You're dead, aren't you? So what the hell are you doing in my dreams? I thought you were here to help me…"_

 _"_ _You bear the gift of…"_

 _"_ _Dreams, I know. Cut it off, ok? Tell me something new." She crossed her arms, pinching her skin to wake up, but it didn't work. Great, so now she was trapped in her own dream until the dragon decided to let her go._

 _Suddenly, she felt as if the atmosphere changed, as if she should be laughing._

 _"_ _We're not trapping you in here." The white dragon, with a female soft voice, appeared. This one was white as snow and kind of glowed, looking beautiful next to the red one. Somehow she was less intimidating. "You're the one who doesn't want to wake up yet."_

 _"_ _You never do want to wake up, do you?" A third dragon, whose body was made of metal, appeared next to the white one. This one was the scariest amongst the three, even though Igneel exhaled a lot more power and intimidation. "You smile and act normal, but reality has stopped being the world you call home a long time ago."_

 _Again, like the last time, she heard Natsu and Lucy, and, looking down, realized they were at the ground and she was floating in the air. The red dragon roared and a huge flow of fire hit the two mages._

Mia woke up sweating, breathing really fast and unsteady. She closed her eyes briefly to try and control her heartbeat, but when she opened them, it raced all over again due to Natsu being practically over her. His face was so close to hers she tried to sink deeper in her pillow, while screaming. Well, she tried to scream, but he quickly put his hand over her mouth in order not to wake up Lucy. She took a deep breath and he let go, sitting up straight.

"What the hell?" She asked in a whispery voice.

"Why are you so scared?" He asked, studying her reactions. She realized she was wearing Lucy's really short pajamas and her blanket was on the floor, probably due to her shifting in her sleep. Blushing really fast, she hurriedly covered herself, trying to figure out how she went from being on the train to being there. Wherever there was.

"Why are you here?"

"You were moving a lot and it sounded like you were crying really low." He said worryingly. "So I came to check on you and you freaked out."

"Just a bad dream. Where are we? How did we get here? How…"

He put his hand in her mouth again to keep her quiet. She sighed and nodded, calming down. He signaled for her to follow him outside and she did, covering herself in the sheet as if it were a huge robe. It turned out they were in one of the guild's dorm rooms, and as they went downstairs, she saw a brief light from the sunrise. It shouldn't be later than 6am.

"You passed out on the train." He told her and she frowned. "Lisanna said it's because you have been trying to use magic all the time, and it's wasting your energy too fast." At that she stopped and he turned. "What's wrong?"

"You sound ok with that."

"I knew you were powerful. You just need to train." He gave her a full smiled, and she noticed, for the first time, how pointy his canines were. "Why didn't you want to tell us that you've been trying to use it?"

"It's complicated. I'm not ready to let my friends know yet and I was afraid one of you would end up telling them… Or locking me up or something, because I'm not from here and all." _Or fearing me_ , _because being supposedly able to see your hearts can be a dangerous and exposing thing._

"What kind of people would do that?" He asked in surprise.

"You'd be surprised with what people can do. Sometimes I forget what it's like to fully trust someone." She muttered, looking down, and then something occurred to her. "Natsu, can I ask you something? It's about that dream I told you I had with you."

He nodded.

"If Igneel's your dad..." She started, trying to figure out her last two dreams. "Is there a reason he'd blow fire at you?"

"Sure, to feed me! He did that a lot when I was a child and couldn't get any normal food." He answered promptly and she raised an eyebrow. "I can eat fire because I'm the fire dragon slayer. Wendy is the sky dragon slayer, she eats air. Gajeel is the iron dragon slayer so he eats iron." He explained and she was really surprised by that.

"So they weren't nightmares." She murmured, trying to make sense of her two previous dreams. Why would he show her a dream where he blew fire to Natsu and Lucy? There was nothing else happening there.

"What?"

"Never mind." She quickly dismissed it. "Could you please not tell my friends anything about me figuring out how to use magic? I don't mind if you tell Fairy Tail, it's your right, but the others will definitely fear me."

"Sounds like weird way to be friends of someone, but 'k. I won't tell them."

She nodded, thankful.

"By the way…" She said, getting up and deciding to sleep a little longer. "Thank you for not asking what I can do." She smiled, feeling a different level of respect for the dragon slayer. "Once I learn it for sure, you'll be the first to know." She promised, and he smiled while she returned to her bed.

 **A.N: So... I feel like I sort of rushed into things and at the same time didn't, because the plan is to develop the Eternity Project as the first arc and there's a lot to cover. I can either rush into action parts, or slow down the pace to work on character relationships (also on their personalities, since I know I left Mia's friends as shallow members and to be honest, I haven't even really given Mia a real voice yet, I think.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading, sorry for the babbling and... Oh, before I forget! The "Can't you wish this into being?" question Natsu makes wasn't out of the blue. Just in case anyone wonders :)**


	7. 7 - Caellum

"Tell me again, why are we the ones doing this?" Amanda asked for the hundredth time.

"Because they are busy gathering info on their guild members and working for money, the money that's keeping us fed and warm at night, I must add." Anna was the one who answered, sounding annoyed. "So if they need us to buy one simple key, what's the issue?"

"The issue is I don't see why we all had to come." Alex complained, and right there it was clear how perfect he and Amanda were for each other. "If it's just to buy one key, you and Mia should be enough since the two of you are already so settled in."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Anna turned around indignantly.

"Exactly what you heard."

"Guys…" Logan called, worn out by their constant arguments.

It had been a week and a half since they arrived in Fiore. After they returned to Magnolia, Natsu and Lisanna decided to teach them magic in order to figure out what they could do. They were excellent in pretending that they didn't know Mia was exploring her own magic, and in the end only Anna had managed to do – or rather, discover - something, hence her new found excitement towards the entire place and thing.

The rest of the guild members created a sort of routine. Erza, Gray, Lucy and Wendy would go on jobs to make some money – Lucy with Gray and Erza with Wendy to balance their powers. Mirajane took care of management, public relations and stuff like that. Lisanna and Natsu would stay on guard for any new information the teams gathered while doing their jobs, and if someone suddenly appeared – or information was enough to go research somewhere – the two of them would go. They even took Owen and Logan along in a few jobs, and had promised to take Anna and Mia next.

In the meantime, in between jobs, Natsu and Lucy engaged on a really rough fight. Lucy argued about something, Natsu only listened and tried to settle things down but his social skills were deplorable at that, so the stellar spirit mage only left angrier at him – and he bugged Mia for a whole day until she told him one of Lucy's wishes.

"She's been thinking of Caellum ever since that day you refused to let her buy the key." Mia finally gave in when she was able to see Lucy smiling as Natsu's bronze wish – she still couldn't see the mages' wishes all the time, they were mostly blurred unless they were really intense, but she had gotten a little better. She learned to un-blur their Bronze Level wishes, the Level that showed the present dreams. She had also figured, by watching them and by her own efforts into un-blurring every single one of them, that the stronger the wizard, the harder it was for her to tap into their wish levels. Also, her relationship with them also influenced: She'd grown closer to Lisanna ever since the rescue, and she managed to un-blur the girl's three levels.

"There's a magic shop that sells silver keys in Aspen." Lisanna told Natsu, hanging on to the conversation. Mia wondered if she should ask Lisanna whether she had feelings for Natsu, because it was clear that he had those for Lucy – even though not even Natsu himself seemed to realize that.

That day, Mia offered to take the train down to Aspen and buy the key while the mages worked on whatever they needed to work on. When she did it, her friends almost freaked out at her, which lead her to snap at all of them. After some time, they decided that they'd all go.

Hence Amanda and Alex's complaining, The two weren't really interested in going, but when Anna, Owen and Logan agreed to it, they had no other choice.

"Why didn't they come along?" Anna asked in the train, while the others slept.

"Because Natsu is terrible with transportation and they need to be there in case one of the teams arrives with news. Since Happy is with Lucy and Gray, there's not much we can do to go faster."

"Why would Happy make things go faster?" The girl asked and Mia realized none of them knew the cats could fly, since none of them had been in the haunted house that day and neither exceed had fled ever since.

"He can fly." She told and Anna frowned. "Don't do that." Mia half begged.

"Do what?"

"Look at me as if I'm weird or crazy." She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't mind it before because, well, even I sort of believed it, but now we all know I am not crazy. So please, stop with the staring."

"But Mia, you are crazy, and weird." Anna looked at her amused, and before Mia could argue, she raised her hand mutely asking her to wait. "I mean, we fell through a hole inside an elevator well and ended up in this huge place. A girl rescued us by making pink wool appear, and the first thing you did was realize we fell into another world. You never even blinked. We then found out that we have no obvious way of getting back and are stuck with a bunch of mages. Great people, I'll give you that, and I actually like them, but still, any normal person would be freaking out. We were." Her voice was soft now, and despite the words being a little harsh, the way Anna made them sound gave Mia the impression that she was listening to a compliment. "We found out that we have magic and you jumped right into practicing."

"Well, I just don't spend so much time freaking out as you all…"

"You don't spend any time freaking out." Anna corrected her. "We have twenty years, and during all this time, we grew up in a place where magic is part of fairy tales, make believe stories we tell our children or watch in Disney Channel. The closest anyone can get to magic there, is by reading Harry Potter. How does one still believes despite never having any proof that it exists?" She asked, half rhetorically, and half curiously. Mia just waited for the rest of Anna's speech. "I don't think the others have figured you out yet, and that's probably part of the reason Amanda and Alex are being such jerks, but I know that you haven't discovered your powers here. Suddenly, a lot of things that felt out of place in the past started making sense, and then I realized why you accepted the magic part. But the travelling through worlds thing, and the fact that _everyone_ has magic here? Only you can accept it this fast, and that's what makes you both weird and crazy. The way you believe in things, Mia, even when everyone tells you otherwise, is amazing, and insane. Which doesn't mean it's a bad thing."

"So now you're turning all the years that you guys saw me as a freak into something good?" Mia asked incredulous, but her heart softened at those words.

"What are you talking about? We always saw it as something good. I invited you to live with me when your parents left town even though I found you weird and crazy, didn't I?" Anna smiled. "We love you. All of us." She looked at Logan, Owen, Amanda and Alex. "We like the weird part, too, it's kind of cute. And it gives us something to make fun of when we're bored." She laughed at the last part, while Mia hit her. "Which doesn't make us the bad guys. You laugh at us too, don't you? You made fun of Logan when he was in his womanizer phase, and of me when I was on my drama-queen phase. That's what makes us friends. We laugh and we fight, but at the end of the day, we trust each other."

Mia was at a loss for words just there, but she was spared the trouble of looking for them, because the train arrived at its destination and they all woke up and left, finally in Aspen.

It was a pretty, small town. Houses there were simple, looking a lot like what ancient wooden houses on their world were, only the walls were all yellow and the rooftops were all green. It was an odd town, with cobblestone pathways and almost no citizens walking in the streets.

"Anybody else feeling like we just walked into a creepy town?" Alex asked, looking around the weirdly colored houses.

"Creepy?" Logan looked at him. "It looks like somebody took one of my coloring books from when I was a child and brought it to life, you know. All it lacks is a bright purple sun."

"I never painted the rooftops of a house in any color other than red." Anna muttered. "And every kid paints the sun in yellow." She added, looking amused at him, and Mia knew he'd hear her mocking him for a really long time over the purple sun. Foreseeing a senseless discussion, she cut them short, leading the way into the town and after a magic shop.

They walked up and down until they found the shop and entered it. There, she asked for the silver key, and the shopkeeper informed her they'd find it at the neighbor town's magic shops. Since it was a fifteen minutes train ride, Mia decided to take the trip there and back.

"Great, another train ride." Logan mumbled.

"Maybe there the sun will be purple." Anna suggested, laughing while they waited for the train.

"Look at the bright side, we get to meet cities without those mages telling us what to do." Alex celebrated, managing to somehow ruin the light atmosphere.

"They're not so bad." Owen said, after a while in silence. "The blond girl is pretty hot." His voice was purposefully light, but it seemed to work to relax the rest of them again.

"I like the silvery haired one better." Alex immediately commented, being hit by Amanda. "The older one."

"I'd take Lisanna happily anytime." Logan said and Mia smiled at the fact that he was the only one who bothered saying the girl's name. And the only one who sort of meant what he said in a less than stupid way. She had caught him watching Lisanna from afar for a while, and despite him never taking the courage to go talk to her, or get to know her, Mia knew that Logan had always ran from serious relationships because he felt like he'd always hurt the girls, and somehow every girl he'd dated had been dramatic or problematic. Lisanna was happy, and always smiling, so it had to get his attention.

"What about Erza?" Owen called. "I mean, she's all serious and tough, but I bet she'd be just a little something if she met a real man." He gave them all a dirty smile and the two other guys seemed to enjoy whatever mental image they had – which Mia had the unfortunate to see since it actually became Alex's bronze wish. She quickly shut off her magic.

"Don't you dare say something about picking Wendy." She said to all of them, sounding serious. "She's a teenager."

"She's fourteen." Owen said. "I'm not one for young girls but it's not creepy or anything. Anna dated older guys when she was fourteen and they weren't taking advantage. Also, Wendy is really pretty. She'll be hot in a couple years."

"God, you guys are disgusting." Amanda said twisting her nose. "How can you live with yourselves?"

"It _is_ creepy, Owen. Can you talk about anything other than girls?" Anna complained.

"You're just angry because the only guys here are disappointing." Alex pointed out.

"Not at all." Amanda said with a grin. "Natsu's hot and has a good sense of humor. Also, am I the only one who noticed he's pretty gentle when he wants to be? I wouldn't mind having him to myself."

"Not to mention, have you guys seen Gray shirtless?" Anna looked at her girlfriends and they both nodded, eyes practically sparkling. "He's not a shrimp, either, he's handsome and period. With that cold mysterious personality…" Her voice was acquiring a dreamer state.

The girls laughed at the faces the guys made, while arriving at the intended town. There, they found out it was a lot bigger than Magnolia or the other towns they'd been to and they walked around trying to find the magic shop the seller told them about. After entering the third shop, Mia sighed, seeing there was nobody there to sell anything.

"We're not getting anything here." Amanda sighed before turning her back and leaving. Mia and Alex called her name. "Come on, guys. This is stupid."

"Oh, what do we have here?" A tiny old guy appeared before Amanda, blocking her exit and scaring her. She and Alex both pulled their swords – given to them by Erza as a peace-making gift, of all things - defensively and Mia fought the urge to scream at them, resting her hand on Alex's shoulder instead. He relaxed a little.

"We were looking for a key." Mia told the old man. "One of the stellar spirits silver keys. Caellum."

He seemed interested in her request.

"That's odd." He said. "There are only three spirit mages nowadays and I'm sure you're not them." He said, walking over the shop and opening a drawer, removing a silver key from it. "Here it is, Caellum. It costs 40k jewel." He smiled at them and Mia heard Alex cursing.

"That's too much for a silver key that can only be used by three wizards in the continent, don't you think?" He inquired aggressively.

"We were told it would cost 20k at most." Anna added.

The old man shrugged.

"I don't know what you're up to, but you're not stellar spirit mages. So I don't have to sell it for a fair price."

We're not buying it for ourselves." Mia barged in before Amanda or Alex said something they would all regret. "I'm sorry if we were rude. We're not used to the way things work around here. But we're here to make a friend a favor. He is friends with a stellar spirit mage and she's really mad at him, so one of our friends gave him the idea of buying her Caellum because she wanted it. He agreed and here we are."

"Friends with a stellar spirit mage?" The old guy seemed suspicious.

Mia nodded smiling.

"Please, sir? After all, if there are only three stellar spirit mages left, what's the point in keeping this key? You might not sell it later." She tried and she saw that her last argument worked, as he nodded and lowered the price to 25k jewels, which was the best they'd get – and Natsu had said to buy it if it cost 30k anyway.

However, when she turned to leave with the key, a guy standing at the door put his hand on the exit way, blocking them. He was really tall and muscular, blond and had a scar on his right eye. He wore headphones and spiky things to his head, and also a black cape around his body, covering all of his clothes. His expression was severe and dangerous, making everyone back away a few steps, while the store owner seemed to hide behind the counter.

"I know all three stellar spirit mages. One of them is a princess, so she'd never need to send someone so far to get this key. The other one already owns a Caellum spirit, which leaves Lucy. Now I don't know you but I'm sure I know all of Lucy's friends, so whatever you're up to, it's not what you just said."

"What…" Anna seemed confused. "We were telling the truth!"

"We're Lucy and Natsu's friends." Logan added. "We also know Lisanna, Mirajane and a few other Fairy Tail wizards."

At the mention of Fairy Tail, his Golden Level wish suddenly un-blurred. Judging by how foggy and blurry it was, he was a really powerful mage, because he was harder to read than Erza. His dream was of an old man with the Fairy Tail mark, holding his hand up with three fingers closed, one finger pointing to the sky and his thumb pointing to the side – in Fairy Tail's _I'm watching you_ sign. Around him were all the other guild members, with their hands in the air, in what seemed like a carnival parade.

"Take the key and go." Mia told her friends, giving them the key. "I'll stay and tell him everything, but the last train leaves in a few minutes, so you guys need to leave."

"What about you?" Logan frowned.

"I can go tomorrow. We don't have money to get us all into an inn, but it's enough for just me." She assured him, hoping that the blond guy was really who she thought he was, otherwise she'd be staying behind for nothing. "If I stay can you let them go? Worst case scenario you'll use me to find them." She told the man, and he seemed to be intrigued by their conversation, because he stared at her curiously while dropping his arm.

Alex and Amanda didn't hesitate, and after a moment, Logan and Owen followed the couple. Anna stayed put.

"You want us to leave you with this stranger in an unknown town by yourself? Why? What are you hiding from us?" She asked inquiringly and Mia smiled at her.

"He's a ticking time bomb, if I'm not wrong." She said, pointing towards the blond, who raised an eyebrow. "And Alex and Amanda might as well be a trigger, especially if they miss the train back."

"Can't you just come along?" Anna insisted. "He can't really hold us here."

"Not true." He spoke, crossing his arms. "The new council issued a note that any suspicious activities involving mages in any way may be investigated, and the suspicious people, brought to the Council itself."

"What? Why would anyone be so paranoid?" Anna complained. "We're not suspicious."

"We are to him." Mia interrupted. "Go, Anna, they're waiting. I'll be there by lunch."

Anna had to leave in order not to lose the train, and Mia waited a while before leaving the shop. The blond grabbed her arm right away.

"Thank you." She said to the old seller before trying to yank her arm away. "Let go! I'm not running, asshole!"

"Then start talking." He said without letting her go. "You really don't want to play games with me, kid."

"Or what, you'll electrocute me?" She defied, knowing fully well the effect her words would have. He let her go and studied her carefully, while his eyes shot her the question she knew he was about to ask. "You're Laxus Dreyar, Makarov's grandson and former S-Class mage from Fairy Tail, right?"

* * *

 **A.N: Ok, a few things this time:**

First, Aspen isn't useless. I didn't give it a "child coloring book" description just to leave it at that, but for now the town was just a fast stop for them.

Second, sorry for the long speeches and talks between them all. This chapter was full of dialogues and had no action or hardly any development, but Mia's friends were becoming a dead weight and they're not. As great as the Fairy Tail mages are, I can't erase the fact that she grew up in the same world as Anna and the others, and their relationship won't be a main focus here, but leaving it sideways is making Anna and the others way too superficial (although I don't really plan on giving them all too much focus, Anna and Logan are especially important in the long ride).

Third, thanks for reading this far.

Last, but definitely not least: Coconut Juice, thank you so much for all of your reviews. Most of your questions will be answered through the story, but I can tell you some points: First, no, I haven't written a description for Mia yet, and it's great that you noticed. It's actually on purpose, and it will be explained in one or two chapters from this one. Second, Eternity Project is indeed the 'arc', but it develops in "sub arcs" (it's hard to write this around one main problem and cover everything else that has to be covered).

Again, thank you so much for your kindness, and thank you to anyone who took the time to read. Till next time! xo


	8. 8 - Dream Slayer

"How do you know all of that?"

"Like we said, we know Lucy and Natsu." She rolled her eyes and talked as if he were a little kid being tutored – partly because she was frustrated from her friends fighting earlier and wanted to take it off on someone, and partly because his rude treatment made him the perfect person for it.

"Come on, I can't be seen out here like this." He said, suddenly looking around and pulling her roughly after him. She tried to yank free of his grasp but he only grabbed tighter to her arm and she gave up, almost running to keep up his pace. He took them through empty alleys and creepy streets – and she was about to summon anything that would make him let go of her so she could run to the crowded streets – when they entered the back door of a building.

It was a two-floored house and, judging by the size of the kitchen, it was no small place. She looked around curiously, seeing that the place was a mess and had no decoration whatsoever.

"Where are we?" She asked him, staying close to the door when he released her. She had to count to ten mentally in order to keep herself calm and push her fears aside – the bad side of seeing everyone's worst dreams and nightmares was that some of those nightmares ended up becoming her fears, and sometimes she could be a little paranoid.

"My house." He surprised her. "Come on, the living room is that way." He called walking up to the hallway.

"When exactly did we agree on me coming over? I was just supposed to tell you everything, right?" She asked suspiciously. "I'm not moving away from the door." She warned him.

"I'll just drag you, so come on, rebel."

"No!" She refused, grabbing the door handle and opening it as he stepped closer to her. "Move and I scream." She threatened and he stopped, now looking annoyed.

"You're the one who made the _stay back and be the hostage_ deal." He pointed out.

"Nobody makes a deal to be a hostage without a plan, idiot." She rolled her eyes. "Besides, I never said that. I said I'd stay and tell you everything because unlike them, I knew who you were and they would probably just piss you off. You'd hurt one of them and I really wouldn't want to deal with those consequences, because they'd be really annoying. So yes, I stayed and they took the key to Natsu so he'll make up with Lucy when she returns. They're bringing Fairy Tail back. Gray, Wendy, Erza, Lisanna and Mirajane are in on it too." She explained. "I never expected to run into any former member, we were just buying one key."

"How did you know who I was?" He demanded.

She bit her lip.

"Lucy has a board with information on everyone. There's the description of every mage."

"So you took a chance."

She nodded, but her heartbeat was too fast, and she knew he had an accurate hearing, so it wasn't a surprise when he approached her, now standing right in front of her with his arms crossed, and looked down at her waiting for a new answer.

He sighed when she didn't move and turned his back on her.

"Just close the damn door, will you? People really can't know I'm here."

"Why am I not leaving in that sentence of yours?" She asked suspiciously.

"Because you have nowhere to go, right? Like you said, you missed the last train." He turned around to look at her, and this time he looked a little less scary, but just as annoyed.

"I'm not staying here." She said quickly. "I don't know you, and I can figure something out. Thank you anyway."

She was about to step out when a lightning hit the door handle and pushed it closed, startling her and making her jump back. She hit her back on the kitchen counter and lost her balance for a second.

He was by her side when she almost fell and held her up. Now with her heart racing, she was about to yell at him.

"Don't freak out, there were four drunk guys entering that alley, look." He showed her a lacrima window – Lucy explained to her that those only let whoever was inside a place to see the outside, like hidden windows. – and through it, she indeed saw four creepy looking drunk guys. "Aspen is a really heavily frequented town, it's been full of criminals and bad intentioned people lately, which is why I brought you here. There aren't any inns here and the hostels… Well, don't go there." He finished and she looked down, feeling a little scared and suddenly regretting her decision to stay. She should have at least kept one of Erza's swords.

"Lisanna said you were a loner antisocial rude guy." She commented, not minding her words. He didn't seem like the guy who'd be offended easily, it was more of the type who was always annoyed and angry, but never quite offended or hurt.

"Really?" That seemed to amuse him. "Quite a smart girl you are, agreeing to stay alone behind to handle the loner antisocial rude guy who happens to be a really strong mage."

"I never said anything about you being strong." She murmured, turning around to look at the mess. "You surely are disorganized." She pointed out.

"Come on, rebel, living room."

She rolled her eyes and followed him through the hallway, passing a staircase that went to a lower level and the one who lead upstairs, and getting to the entrance hall. Next to it, there was a lovely living room with a huge wooden fireplace, the kind that she had always dreamed of, and leather sofas around a television. She wondered how it worked since there was no technology.

"It's a lacrima powered screen. When there are important stuff like the Grand Magic Games, I can watch from here. Of course, the games this year were pathetic if it weren't for Natsu's interference in the ending." He told her seeing her look. She frowned and stared at him.

"You knew about that? Why wouldn't you go meet him and Lucy?" She inquired. She knew for sure that the guild meant the world to him.

It occurred to her that his Golden Wish was related to what Lisanna had called Battle of Fairy Tail – which happened _after_ Lisanna's 'death', meaning his Golden Wish changed along the years.

According to Grandeeney, it usually did change when the person's personality was established, which was around the age of 18. But Laxus was way older when he engineered that entire battle.

 _He changed it twice? The dragons said it only changed once and even so it wasn't always_. She wondered.

"Because I'm not their puppy dog. The guild is over." He said shrugging.

"Even you know it's not true. I told you, they're bringing it back. They actually wanted you to take over as Master." She revealed, knowing it to be true from another of Lucy's Bronze Wish.

It seemed to surprise him, but she couldn't tell for sure because the only reaction she got was a quick change in his eyes. He threw a package of papers on the floor and the box itself away before studying the papers contents.

"I'm not suited for that kind of position." He said. "I'm also not returning because it's not really the guild."

"Because your grandfather won't be there to stop you if you go on a crazy power hungry mode again?" She inquired and that got him to look at her.

"How much did those brats tell you?"

"Pretty much everything." She smiled feeling a little proud of it.

He sighed.

"You really shouldn't talk about stuff you don't know."

"I just said…"

"That's not what I mean." He interrupted her and she understood, falling in silence after that and wishing to leave. Instead, bored and trying to shake away her fears, she focused on his wishes, trying to see past the Silver and Bronze fogs.

It took her a while to realize there was no fog over the Silver Level. It was simply dark, empty.

The Bronze one was hard, but when she really focused, she managed to see it, and once she saw, she was glad to know it wouldn't be unseen. The fog was gone for good…

… And she saw his house empty with only himself in it.

"What…" She backed away. "I…" He looked up at her, annoyed again. He frowned when he saw her expression – which should be something between confused and hurt – and waited. "Look, I could just spend the night at the train station." She said.

"We're back at it?" He asked, sounding bored. "Why are you still standing? There's a couch right next to you." He added and she ignored it.

"I can see…" She hesitated. Should she really tell the angrier person she knew that she saw into his heart? Well, he wanted her to leave anyways, so it couldn't change much. "I can see into people's hearts. Three levels of wishes. I know you want me to leave."

He sat down and relied on the sofa's back, now more comfortable and visibly more interested.

"Sit down." He said again. "You're not going anywhere, I don't care what you saw."

"Can you try not to be so rude?" She couldn't help her temper. "I know it's your house but you're the one who dragged me here in the first place."

"Didn't we clear that out already?"

"You're also the reason I missed the train, so screw you. I can see your heart, it wants me to leave, so I'm leaving, period." She turned around and walked to the kitchen, but he caught her midway by her waist, lifting her up and carrying her – ignoring her struggling – until he dropped her at the couch. He looked angrier now.

"If you leave, something bad will happen to you, dreamer girl, and I'm really not in the mood to go looking for missing girls, so for god's sake, just stay quiet." He said through gritted teeth, kneeling beside her. "I want you gone because, to quote Lisanna, I'm a loner, so it's nothing to do with you. Got it?"

"Don't call me dreamer." She quickly snapped, fighting the memories that nickname brought. "Well, I don't want to stay." She admitted, both to him and herself.

"Why not? I wouldn't hurt you." He frowned at her tone.

 _I've heard that before_. She thought to herself, but managed not to say it, just shaking her head and hugging her knees instead. He sighed and stood up.

"Come on." He called and she looked up. "I'll show you the guest room, you can just stay there and lock the door If you're so scared of me."

Something about his tone made her feel bad about being herself right there. She was usually good at hiding her ghosts. It wasn't like she had a bad history with men in her past - she had a dark past, yes, but nothing like that. Still, she had seen and heard so many nightmares of people involving some pretty dark places and evil guys, that sometimes she feared one of them would happen to her. Seeing people's dreams could be a beautiful thing, but seeing their nightmares could be maddening, showing the darkness in the world that many people were oblivious too. Not only that, when the nightmare or dream was too intense, she'd feel what the dreamer felt, and their fear would always be...Hellish.

Also, being alone in a town that turned out to be dangerous, seeing those four guys on the alley she almost walked into… It all added up to her exhaustion after those last days – as much as un-blurring the mage's hearts wasn't exactly magic, it did drew her energy, and she hadn't been sleeping well either.

"I'm not…" She gave up forming a coherent sentence and followed him upstairs through a hallway full of doors closed. She wondered why would a lone guy have such a huge house. It had to be lonely.

The guest room was the only neat in the house. It had one master bed and a small bookshelf. Like the kitchen and living room, there was no decoration.

The bed looked comfortable enough anyway.

"I'll take you to the station in the morning and you can be on your way to safety. Happy?" He asked at the doorstep, not entering the room.

"I've never been ungrateful before." She murmured, looking down. "I'm sorry for how I acted. Thank you for helping." She managed to smile thankfully at him.

"Whatever." He said, turning around.

"Wait!" She called, sitting down on the edge of the bed and realizing how tired her body was. She really was out of shape. He turned around again and noticing her sitting down, he leaned into the door wood, crossing his arms.

"I told you I can see people's dreams." She started. What the heck, she had already gone halfway anyways. "You do realize I saw yours, right?"

"You mean the one where I don't want you here? Considering the lack of accuracy, I'm not worrying about what else you saw."

"Only that for a Bronze Level, but… I see your Gold Level dream clearly too. To be honest that's how I knew who you were back at that shop."

"Golden dream?" He repeated.

"The one who ties to your past. The one dream that only changes once, according to my mentor. Everyone has it, that one moment in their lives that guides them, that gives them courage, or the will to live. The first one usually forms around the age of 5 or 6 years old, and the second, around the age of 18. It's that dream that usually gives me a hint of one's personality."

"I got the idea. What's mine?" He asked sounding genuinely curious.

"The Parade right after Fairy Tail's Battle. The one where your grandfather and the entire guild made that signal to you even though you were leaving after hurting them all." She told him in a low voice and he tensed. She saw him focus and his bronze dream changed, showing his desire to change his Golden one. "You can't forcefully change it." She told him while reading the Bronze Level. He looked angry again. "I didn't see it on purpose and I won't tell anyone. I had the girls permission to tell theirs. But you know, I'll never believe when you say you don't care about the guild. I know you do."

"You're a really annoying one, you know. Next time, leave one of your friends behind." Was all he said before leaving her, closing the door and herself from everything else.

 _She was in the sky._

 _She couldn't see how she was flying, but she was. Really fast and towards a hurricane that, oddly enough, didn't move around. When she felt its wind, she tried to stop._

 _"_ _Don't fight what you know isn't real. Embrace it, little one, and you'll unleash your real power." Grandeeney appeared within the hurricane._

 _"_ _You bear the gift of dreams." Igneel was right beside her. "But also the curse of nightmares."_

 _"_ _What does that mean? If you're really here, please speak in my language, quit the riddles."_

 _"_ _You're not ready to know it yet." Grandeeney said._

 _"_ _Then stop visiting. I won't forget anything, but this is getting exhausting. I just want a full night's sleep. No dreams or nightmares."_

 _"_ _We're not the only ones trying to reach out" The metal dragon appeared and his words surprised her._

 _"_ _Metallicana." Igneel said in a warning voice and for a moment, she wanted to laugh. She was actually watching dragons discussing in her dreams._

 _"_ _I told Lisanna about you." She told Igneel._

 _"_ _I know. We're always watching over our kids, and their friends. Natsu has already adopted you as family, same as the rest of his guild friends." Igneel had a tinge of humor to his voice that made her warm up to the dragon. "Natsu… Make sure that he's never alone, please."_

 _It was really odd to have the same dragon that was usually bossy and annoying asking please._

 _"_ _Watch over Wendy too, please. She's got her friends and she's stronger now, but I'm afraid… I'm afraid when the time comes for them to prove their bond, she'll struggle." Grandeeney said and as crazy as she sounded, the part about Wendy was clear._

 _It was really impressive how the dragons cared about their human children._

 _"_ _Now, wake up, Dream Slayer." Metallicana said gravely and Mia gasped at the last words, but before she could ask him anything, she was yanked back into reality._


	9. 9 - Orbs

"Dreamer!" She sat up in a flash and hit her forehead painfully in something. She heard someone gasp and realized Laxus was leaning over her, calling for her. "What the hell?"

"I should be saying that. What are you doing here?" She complained, sounding as angry as he looked, with her hand massaging her forehead. "Ouch, it hurts."

She put her hand to her head, feeling as tired as if she hadn't slept. The dragons were great and all, but her claims of getting tired were true. She didn't feel like she had any sleep at all.

Wake up, Dream Slayer. Metallicana's words resonated in her head. How could she be a Slayer? What the hell was a Dream Slayer, anyway? If Dragon Slayers came from Dragons and God Slayers came from Gods… Where did Dream Slayers came from, and to slay what? She had no dragon parent or dragon slaying magic, and her magic was already defined anyway: she could see dreams and, in certain circumstances, summon them into reality.

She realized she really hadn't slept much when she looked at the open window and saw the dark sky and stars. She looked puzzled at the mage standing in front of her and realized he looked tense.

"Jeez, you're a heavy sleeper." His mood was darker than usual. "We need to leave." He told her, and the tension in his voice made her focus. "They found me. Come on, we're getting out of here."

"Who?" She asked, following him to the window and looking at the distance to the street. "I can't jump that high!" She complained. He grabbed her by her waist and jumped, covering her mouth with his free hand just in time to muffle her scream. He landed swiftly and put her down, grabbing her wrist and pulling her after him, again into dark alleys.

"You know, if you want to run from someone, the smart choice is doing it in the middle of a crowd." She said while running to keep up.

"I'm not running away, I'm getting you away. There's a difference."

"Then let me here and go." She said immediately and he stopped, suddenly turning and cornering her, his face and expression those of someone who had been through hell and was still holding a lot of the rage in. In that case, she felt that she was the hell.

"What's wrong now?" He demanded. "I'm not saying I want you gone on your own, so what the hell is your problem?"

"They're close, coming from there." She spoke, ignoring the argument, and pointing him a direction, and he pulled her in the opposite one, still refusing to access the crowded part of the town. "Another two coming from that side." She warned, and he stopped, now looking like he was the annoyed one.

"How do you know that?"

"I can see their dreams, I can tell where they come from." She explained quickly, looking around. They were in a two sided street and there were people coming from both sides. They all had the same Golden dream: a dark haired guy that looked no older than Mia's little sister, that is, fourteen at most. He wore a dark vest with a white striped thingy and his face was calm, serene. Why would so many people dream about the same kid smiling at them?

Suddenly, Laxus' body was engulfed in electric currents, and Mia stepped away, afraid to be electrified. He looked angry, really angry.

"Gramps won't be happy about me engaging a fight." He muttered. "We needed to get to a hiding place."

"Do you even have one?"

"My house was the one!"

"Who makes his own house into his hiding place?" She asked, and was distracted when, for a moment, his bronze wish changed…

For Happy and Carla. He wanted a way out.

Mia bit her lip, wondering if she'd be strong enough to summon two creatures for the first time. First Summoning was already a hard strong magic, and creatures took more energy than inanimate objects, but if she could, maybe he'd be a little less angry at her.

""First Summoning: Carla! Happy!" She called, extending her free hand and seeing as the usual magic circle formed within her reach, and a white exceed came flying out of it. In order to be able to summon a creature or object for the first time, she had to be near the dreamer and do it while the dream lasted – which was usually for hours. People's Bronze Dreams were the ones that changed the most, but still, they changed close to three times a day at most. Once the first summoning was successful, she could repeat them as many times as she wanted, not needing to be near the dreamer anymore.

The dragon slayer watched abashed as the two exceeds appeared from within the magic circle. Mia felt her energy being drained dangerously, but it would last long enough for them to get out of there. She controlled them both, commanding them to pick her and Laxus up and fly away.

"What the hell?" He asked, looking at Happy, who was carrying him.

"Where should we take you?" To both their surprises, Carla asked. Mia looked up in wonder. "Her energy won't last for long, pick a place."

"There's a forest beyond the train tracks, we can stay there until dawn and then I'll send you back to Magnolia." He spoke, and Mia nodded, motioning the exceeds towards the forest. "How did you bring the two of them here?

They took the two to the forest, into a small cavern hidden behind a bunch of bushes. When they arrived, Mia was about to pass out.

"Dismissed, Happy." She said quickly, but held onto Carla. "How can you speak?"

"Happy could, too. Every creature's first summoning will have its consciousness. The second summoning will be just an empty shell, but managing a second summoning takes up a lot more energy. After the second, it's all the same. Dismiss me before you lose it." The exceed answered quickly and was dismissed. Any other questions could be answered by the dragons. She kneeled, breathing fast, and looked up at Laxus, who stared at her silently.

"W-What? You said you wanted to get away. I couldn't really wait for you to decide how." She said defensively.

"You never said you could summon stuff." He said, approaching her and helping her down, then sitting by her side. A cold wind rushed and she shivered, hugging her knees protectively. "You do that a lot." He commented, noticing how tightly she was hugging herself.

"Force of habit. My brother used to tell me to do that, that it would make me feel safe. At some point, it started to because he said it too many times. Now I can't stop it when I'm cold or afraid." She explained, shivering. Suddenly, a heavy cloth fell around her and it took her a while to realize it was his coat. It was big enough to cover her head, shoulder and she could wrap around her knees if she sat like that. "Which doesn't mean I want you to be cold." She added quickly and he suddenly surrounded his arm – the one further from her – with lightning.

"I can warm up. Besides, I'm not feeling cold. I'm not…" He stopped talking and she waited.

"You were about to say you're not that weak." She said and she wasn't asking. He looked down at her as if expecting her to be hurt or to get mad. "Good for you, I'm only using magic for about two years, and it was the first time I summoned two living things for so long, so yes, I'm weak. There's nothing I can do about it." She shrugged, shivering again. He sighed and wrapped the coat around her.

"You also got us out of there." He said. "So we're even, deal?"

"Not at all! I wouldn't be there if it weren't for you!" She said, more in order to annoy him. She didn't really mean it. "Besides, we both know you could have gotten away on your own without this much fuss."

"True, but you didn't have to get me out." He pointed out, ignoring her first sentence. "You could have ran by yourself with Carla, it wouldn't have consumed this much magic."

"Why were they after you?" She asked.

"I can't tell you." He said, looking away, and she buffed. "Don't read my mind."

"That's not what I do!" She said immediately, now annoyed. "I read wishes, not thoughts, and it doesn't work like that."

"How does it work? You said something about Gold and Bronze Levels." He asked, and she took a deep breath.

"It's a long story, and it's probably boring for someone like you."

"Someone like me?"

"All muscles and not that much brain?" She raised an eyebrow as she saw the words angered him.

"Try me." He said simply. "We've got time."

She thought about how to explain it in a way he could understand.

"I can't see hundreds of wishes." She started. "Well, I call them dreams more often than wishes, because I feel like a dream is something stronger. You see, everyone's heart has three levels of dreams: Present, Future and Past, or respectively Bronze, Silver and Golden. The Golden, or Past Level, I already explained to you: it's the dream that connects to your past. It's something that already happened to you, that influences you to an extent that it becomes more than just a memory. It's carved to your heart and soul, and that I can see." She looked outside, seeing the starry sky. "The Silver Level, or Future Level, shows what you dream for your future. Not in a I want to be a doctor and be rich kind of way, but what you really crave. Some people want to be rich so they can find a great house to live with their families, but when I see their Silver Dream, all it shows is one special person smiling at them." She tried to exemplify. "It's that goal that sometimes even you don't know you have, the one hidden behind all of your other desires."

"I got it." He nodded.

"The Bronze Level shows what you desire right now. The thing you want most at the moment. That is the level I can mold and summon. For a while there, when we were surrounded, you wanted Carla and Happy to appear flying so much that it became your Bronze Level Dream, and I could summon them. That's the only level that changes often, either when the dream is accomplished, like what happened with the exceeds just now, or when something else takes its place."

"So as long as I have one wish as the Bronze level, you can't see the rest? Sounds like a huge weakness." He pointed out, but it didn't sound harsh.

"If you learn to control it, it would be a weakness for me. But as long as you can't control, and people usually can't, I'll see your main wish. It gets easier to guess the others if I can already see what moves you, what you want from the future and what you wish for now. Says a lot about someone."

"Like what?"

"Well, I know for a fact you care about the guild and everyone in there, and that you miss them." She said in a low voice and his jaw clenched. "I know you're into something that you don't really want to be, and you have no perspectives regarding your life right now." She had taken a long time figuring out what it meant for him not to have any Silver Level dream. "I also know you're rude and annoying, but in the end of the day, you won't let anybody get hurt on your watch." She finished in a tiny voice. "There's more."

"Go on." He demanded, his posture and voice a little tenser.

"Like there are three dream levels, there are also three nightmares. Three things that oppose the dreams. I learned to shut them off, so I only see them when I force myself to, because it is usually really heavy, but I can see what someone fears the most in a way. They work the same way as the three dreams: one for the present, one for the future and one for the past.

"I've never heard of this kind of magic. Makes me wonder how you'd be if you'd grown into this world." He commented, looking away. She had been wondering the same thing for quite a while now. He looked at her again and this time he looked a little less rough. "Get some sleep, you look even more tired now. I'll take you to Magnolia tomorrow just in case."

She nodded and closed her eyes, being already unconscious when her body leaned into his, her head falling on his shoulder. He moved slightly, but after a while he simply adjusted to her, making himself a little more comfortable and looking away lost in thought.

She woke up to the smell of food, and her stomach immediately reacted. Opening her eyes, she saw a fireplace and a few fish stewing, and looked around confused. She had been laying down with her head in Laxus' cloak, which was why it wasn't so rough. It felt like she had slept for ages, and she loved it.

"You're up." His voice startled her and she sat up straight, seeing as he entered the cave. "Got some from the river nearby, figured you'd be hungry."

She nodded, looking at the fire.

"The mages destroyed the train station to keep us from leaving, so we'll have to walk all the way to the nearest town." He informed her.

"It's only fifteen minutes from here by train, can't be that far if we walk." She said while eating one of the fish.

"You can't summon the exceeds again, can you?"

She shook her head negatively.

"It's possible, but you heard Carla. It takes up even more magical power for a second summoning, and to do a second summoning of her while also summoning Happy and making them take us all the way to Magnolia takes up the kind of power I definitely don't have."

"The second summoning drains your energy but not the third? It's really confusing." He mumbled.

"Well, the first one adds the creature's consciousness, so it's normal to take up a lot of magic. The second changes its nature because it takes away that same consciousness, which is something it was supposed to have in the first place. The third one is just like the second, so I'll be used to it. Which is why it takes less magical power than the other two." She explained.

"You sure understand a lot for someone who only first summoned a creature less than a week ago." He commented while eating the rest of the fish. She was satisfied with just one and sat back, feeling a little less tense.

"Well, I can think." She said, simply, and he looked annoyed at her again.

"Sure you can, you slept through the night and morning." He said back and she frowned. "It's almost noon, dreamer."

"Don't call me that!" She instantly demanded, ignoring the memories it brought back again. "You could have awaken me earlier."

"You looked too peaceful, it felt wrong to wake you up." He shrugged. "You drooled all over my shoulder, so you owe me one." He added, while eating the last fish. She felt her face heating up as she made sense of his words.

"I… Did I…"

"You leaned into me, yes." He gave her a mean smile, knowing it would bug her and it seemed to be something he wanted. "No worries, I was kidding about the drooling thing. That would have made me wake you up." He said in a serious tone. "Besides, I owed you for keeping you in town, right?"

"I was kidding when I said that." She said, surprised, but didn't address the rest of it, feeling odd and ashamed. Instead she stood up and looked outside, curious to see the forest in broad daylight. "Should we walk?"

He stood up too and they left, taking off in the direction he pointed out. They walked near the river for safety reasons, and for about an hour, none of them spoke.

"Why can't you tell me about those guys?" She asked. She'd been running it over her head the entire time, and trying to pick something to talk about that didn't end up with her talking about the empty Silver Level.

"Because I can't."

"What can you tell me?"

"Nothing."

"Why were you in this town?"

"My house is here."

"It's not your home. Even an idiot could tell that."

"You won't drop this, will you?" He stopped to look at her and she shook her head negatively. "How good at keeping secrets are you?"

"I can see people's hearts. What do you think?" She asked as if it should have been obvious and it should.

"Makarov sent me after something." He told her much to her surprise. "Those thieves are from one of Avatar's branches. They're after that thing, too, and they think I have it."

"But you don't."

"No, but as long as they believe it, they'll turn away from any other possible locations, so I'll just have to play catch until I figure out where it is."

"What are they looking for?"

"Some weird crystal orbs. From what we've heard, they collect demonic energy. We heard that they might have a few of the Tartaros' demons on their custody."

"So that's why they wanted Mira." Mia muttered as the puzzle pieces fit together. "They want her Satan Soul's energy."

"They wanted Mira?" Laxus asked interested. Mia nodded, tripping on a root and almost falling on her knees. He supported her before it happened, holding her up, and she felt her face burning. "You ok?"

"Sorry." She muttered, standing on her own. "I'm fine, just tired."

"Why are you that tired anyway? You should exercise more often. Using magic aside, you've slept considerably."

"I have not. I don't remember the last time I slept well, dreamless." She complained, and realized that the short time she'd slept in that cave was dreamless. Maybe the dragons were tired, too?

"Why did they want Mira?" He pressed and she shrugged.

"We don't have a clue. She heard them saying that they needed another demon for the Eternity Project, and since you said they're collecting demonic energy gathering orbs, I just figured the two things are connected. But it's odd, they had a mage capable of taking Mira, it's hard to believe they wouldn't be able to find you if they really wanted to."

"Who rescued her, Erza?" He wondered.

"Natsu and Wendy." She surprised him. "Erza and Gray stayed behind, while the two dragon slayers tracked down her scent. They were supposed to come back for them before engaging in any fights but…" She shrugged. "You know Natsu."

He nodded, smirking.

"If they want her so badly, wouldn't they come after her again?"

"And face off Natsu, Erza, Mira, Lisanna, Lucy and Gray?" She raised an eyebrow. "They probably will once they have everything else. From the little I was told, they sound like a cautious group."

"You look like you know a lot about what's going on." He commented, looking at her sideways. "I noticed you don't have the guild mark, so why are you hanging with them to begin with?"

"I'm not from here. They said they'd help us find a way back home, and until then, they've been helping a lot. They gave us shelter, and told us about this world. That's why." She shrugged, feeling glad about the help the mages had given her.

"This world?" He underlined. "You can't be from Edolas, they don't have magic in their bodies." He commented.

"We're from Earth." She told him. "I think your people call it Caeder for whatever reason."

Suddenly, their walk was interrupted by a trail of ice, and as Laxus slipped, breaking it with lightning and regaining his balance, she reflexively jumped, flipping in the air and falling on the other side of the trail, getting a impressed glance from him. She looked to the ice's source and saw a fair haired mage.

"I know you." Laxus said. "Lyon Bastia from Lamia Scale, right?" He asked, approaching him. "What are you doing?"

"Target locked." Lyon said in a robotic voice. "Permission to kill, sir?"


	10. HELLO!

**Hello people! I had a major writer's block case combined with a year spent aboard, which held me from writing and updating stories at all. I am currently re-reading Dreamer and fixing major mistakes here and there, and it will be updated again soon (like, by sunday there will be a new chapter up).**

 **I plan on doing the same to the other stories, but this one right here is my favorite and my priority.**

 **Happy to be back :)**


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